


Trails of Fire (and Where They Lead)

by fencer_x, Hermes_Zeppeli



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, Burnish kink, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Promare Big Burn 2020, Soulmates, Switching, no-Kray AU, soulmate-associated dubcon, strangers to lovers to friends, threesome invitation (but no acceptance)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:40:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 90,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/pseuds/fencer_x, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermes_Zeppeli/pseuds/Hermes_Zeppeli
Summary: Lio Fotia doesn’t believe in soulmates. Too bad his horny Promaredoes.
Relationships: Gueira/Meis (Promare), Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 41
Kudos: 312
Collections: Promare Big Burn 2020





	1. Chapter 1

Lio grabbed the nearest pillow at hand—a lovely hand-embroidered thing Magnus’s wife had given him as a thank-you gift shortly after the settlement’s founding—and pressed it hard against his face, screaming as loud and long as his lungs could stand.

When he let the pillow fall away, his throat was raw, breathing hurt, and his pants were still uncomfortably, unrelentingly, unbelievably tight.

He’d stopped bothering trying to jerk off weeks ago. It only exacerbated the urge and left him feeling, somehow, even less fulfilled than before.

Six months now since they’d erected the final sheets of sleek Burnish shielding to complete the wall surrounding their little settlement, and Pyropolis was thriving. Their population had grown by nearly a hundred at last count, with daily influxes of new Burnish seeking haven among their brothers and sisters, shelter from the harsh, mistrustful world outside their imposing, sturdy walls. They lived, worked, and loved in one another’s company, without judgment or fear from outsiders. It was, by all accounts, the Burnish city Lio had envisioned ever since his own horrific awakening years earlier.

But that awakening had, for Lio, happened in solitude. And in the time since, he’d traveled almost exclusively solo, save for the rumbling, warm comfort of Detroit between his legs and the horizon unfurling before him. True, he’d considered there might be consequences to choosing to trust others—to lead them and build for them a city they might call their own—but it was a calculated risk he’d felt for the best if they were to survive as a people.

But then Gueira and Meis had sat him down, in his own kitchen full of cabinets without doors and unpainted drywall, and told him in no uncertain terms, “Boss, you _gotta_ get laid. Like, you _have_ to. It’s for your own good.”

Even the leader of Mad Burnish and the founder of Pyropolis was not, it seemed, unbound by the whims of nature.

Meis had tried to explain it with a sort of clinical detachment that Lio had appreciated at first but subsequently been utterly ruined by Gueira’s lurid, leering interjections. Burnish derived their powers from the Promare with which they were bonded—those strange little alien lifeforms discovered by the Prometh Foundation that had wandered over from a parallel universe to wreak havoc on the human population quite unwittingly. This was, by now, three decades removed from the Great World Blaze, and with years of social reform and intense research behind them, such details were fairly common knowledge among both Burnish and their more mundane counterparts. 

But while all Burnish were aware of the basic biology comprising these creatures to which they had found themselves unwillingly bound, there was quite a gulf of difference between knowing…and understanding.

There was a difference between _knowing_ that, in their native universe, Promare lived in massive colonies of billions, fueling each other’s flames in a cycle of give and take, energy and depletion, connected by a wefting and weaving web—and understanding how that translated to the humans with whom they’d synchronized.

 _It’s a hormonal signal_ , Meis had said, and _It’s a reminder to get your dick injection! Or give it! Or both!_ Gueira had said, and they were both infuriatingly correct, it seemed.

He needed an outlet. Not for release—but for _connection_. This meant he couldn’t cheat this urge with a quick, private tug in the comfort of his own bed. The Promare craved union, to be joined and share thoughts and emotions and _themselves_ with one another. And when the Burnish they were linked to gathered in droves—like, say, in a city numbering in the several hundreds and growing—those urges mounted exponentially, signals _ping_ ing like crazy, until those unfortunate souls experiencing the drive for the first time were left, much like Lio, screaming their frustrations into perfectly lovely throw pillows.

Things couldn’t continue like this—it was utter _torture_. Lio couldn’t focus, his temper was short, and it was just damn difficult walking around at half-mast most of the day. Gueira and Meis had, as good generals, offered their own brand of help—either as go-betweens to find a suitable partner whose discretion could be trusted, or as companions themselves, so long as Lio didn’t get too attached—but Lio had (he hoped gracefully) turned them down. No—no, and again no. It was one thing for the odd young Burnish suffering from “colony cock” to find another soul in a similar predicament with whom to sate their needs—it was quite another for Lio, their _leader_ , to do so. It was unbecoming of his station for one, and it smacked of unsavory power dynamics for another. 

No, the people sheltering within Pyropolis’s walls depended on Lio for protection and guidance—so this little problem would be taken care of quickly and quietly and _far_ from the settlement gates. To no one’s surprise, neither Gueira nor Meis approved of this, but they were his generals, not his wingmen, and so had no say in the matter.

“When should we expect you back?” Meis asked as Lio gently revved Detroit’s nonexistent engine, purely for love of the thrumming, rumbling hum that distracted at least for a moment from the uncomfortable tightness in his pants. 

“When I return,” Lio said simply, giving Meis a look. “I’m quite capable of handling myself, you realize.”

“Yeah, we know, Boss,” Gueira said, throwing an elbow up onto Meis’s shoulder. “We just wanted to know when we ought to send out a clean-up crew.” He flicked a spark at Lio’s nose. “Don’t incinerate anyone we wouldn’t incinerate.”

Lio batted the spark away with an irritated huff. “I’m not going to _incinerate_ anyone. I’m hardly a child—”

“You’re our boss, Boss,” Meis said, shrugging off Gueira. “But if you’ve never experienced this sort of thing—”

“ _Colony cock_ ,” Gueira crowed into his cupped hands, earning a sharp frown from an older woman just toddling from her quarters to dump a compost pail.

“—then it can be tough to remember to rein it in.” He wrang his hands nervously. “You sure you won’t just—”

“I’m sure,” Lio said, fixing Meis with a warning look that said he was no one’s project and certainly not their third wheel. He still retained some small measure of respect for Gueira, after all, and he was quite sure it would be reduced to ash if he had to hear them going at it in full stereo instead of muffled through a wall. “Don’t bother waiting up. I’ll return once I’ve gotten what I need, and no sooner. If I’m not back in three days, feel free to send a scouting party for me.”

“Wh— _three days_?!” he heard Meis practically screech, as Lio opened up Detroit’s imagined throttle and left the gates of Pyropolis and the curious glances of the sentries on wall duty behind in a thick cloud of dust.

Lio, of course, had no intention of taking three days to complete his task. Had it been remotely feasible, he wouldn’t have taken more than three _hours_ , but that was likely to prove difficult, if for no other reason than because Pyropolis was situated in the shadow of the looming Mount Fennel, a good evening’s drive from the bounds of Promepolis proper, which was the only place where Lio was likely to find anyone up for the sort of anonymous assignation he was seeking.

He therefore decided to let Detroit take him where it willed, imagining himself back following those long, lonely roads as he’d done before he’d crossed paths with Gueira and Meis and the rest of their wild Mad Burnish companions. They were not fond memories, but they had brought him to where he was today. For that, he could not bring himself to regret his time riding alone over the Waste, from population point to population point.

Once he’d traveled far enough from the walls of Pyropolis to lose sight of the settlement in the dim gloaming of dusk giving way to twilight, though, an odd sensation swept over him. The insistent throbbing _need_ he’d been struggling with these past weeks blessedly began to fade—only to be replaced by a new and not entirely unwelcome sort of… _tug_.

An invitation, he decided it felt like—some innate call, summoning him in a direction he couldn’t pinpoint but it seemed Detroit could track quite capably. He could feel his Promare as keenly as if it sat inside his own belly, smoldering just behind his navel with insistent pulses that urged and encouraged but gave no command beyond _Go_. 

So he went. 

Detroit raced through the cool evening air, the emptiness of the Waste passing as a blur as together they followed the unknown call like a beacon. Lio lost all sense of the passage of time as the call grew stronger, subsuming altogether the intolerable discomfiture that had sent him on this ridiculous ‘quest’ in the first place. He no longer cared about getting off or making any sort of connection; he only wanted to know _where that call_ _was coming from_ , and why his Promare was so insistent he find it.

When he did, at length, locate the source of the call, he wished he’d stayed back in his cozy little apartments in Pyropolis, buried under more pillows than a grown man ought to rightfully own. Hell, even Gueira and Meis’s bed was starting to look tempting—it was a sight better prospect than _here_ , at least.

“Really?” he muttered, frowning down at his midsection and poking his stomach for good measure. “ _This_ is where you’ve brought me?”

He tried, unsuccessfully, to urge Detroit back onto the asphalt, but the construct refused to be budged, seeming to sink into the gravel that crunched beneath Lio’s boots as he smoothly dismounted. With a snap of his fingers and a beleaguered sigh, he dismissed Detroit, reducing it once more to the flame and will from which he’d created it, and stared up with a sour frown at the flickering neon sign dubbing the seedy little bar to which he’d been summoned simply “Stub’s”.

A piece of paper taped to one of the grimy windows advertised an open position for a waitress (“A- and B-cups need not apply”), and the parking lot was littered with empty bottles and cans, the contents of which Lio could only guess. Motorcycles were lined up along the wall like horses hitched before a saloon in one of those old films Lio had seen as a child, and Lio paused to admire them—then frowned when his Promare gave an insistent little burble in his belly that left him feeling light-headed. That was, evidently, enough of that.

With a decided slump to his shoulders, he adjusted his jabot, ran a hand through his hair to tousle it artfully, and touched his earring for luck.

It was nowhere Lio wanted to step foot inside, let alone do anything _else_ inside, yet he could think of no other reason his Promare might have decided _this_ was where Lio needed to go prowling for a pick-up. The only blessing was that it was far enough from Pyropolis that, hopefully, no one he knew would be lurking inside, ready to carry tales back to the settlement of the big boss’s late-night slumming. 

With no small amount of reluctance, Lio laid a gloved hand against the door (sticky, of course) and pressed his way inside.

He was relieved to note that the stench was not quite as oppressive as he’d feared—a little bit of oil grease, a little bit of tobacco smoke, and a _lot_ of what had to be the cheapest beer brewed these days. Setting what Lio assumed must be the overall nostalgic vibe of Stub’s was a dying jukebox huddled in a corner, softly but steadily pumping out what had probably been hits once upon a time, back before the Great World Blaze, but were now merely off-key reminders of a world gone by. 

Its diligent efforts, though, were drowned out by a rowdy group of patrons who had commandeered two tables and were boisterously downing drinks and laughing over a mountain of pizza that could have rivaled Fennel for altitude. Lio could sense the presence of several Burnish among them—and Lio made sure to keep his distance. Promepolitans did enjoy their pets, and the Burnish who lived within the borders of the city-state were like lapdogs to Pyropolis’s wolves. He had no business with them, and he intended to give them no reason to bother sniffing out what someone of Lio’s make was doing this far from home. 

His Promare continued to roil and writhe insistently, and worried his legs might give out, Lio swiftly moved to the bar, called for the least watered-down alcohol Stub’s had on tap, then followed up with a request for a glass of ice. The ice, of course, would do nothing for him, but he remembered what it felt like, and pressing something he imagined to be cool and comforting to his forehead might help quiet his thoughts and bank the flames he worried might soon come shooting out of every orifice if he didn’t find _whatever_ it was his Promare was seeking in this dingy dive. It was worth a shot, at least.

On receiving the beer that would not get him drunk and the ice that would not cool him down, Lio quietly thanked the bartender (Stub himself? It was entirely possible), closed his eyes, and tried to pick apart the whims of the capricious little alien to which he had found himself most unwillingly bound. He’d thought, in the years since his awakening, that he’d managed to learn the ins and outs of his Promare, how to conjure its flames as if they were an extension of himself, how to mold those flames into any form he wished—yet still he found he could be surprised. Surprised and confused. And irritated—very irritated. 

He largely had himself to blame, though; if it hadn’t been for his stubborn pride, he could have taken care of this mess weeks ago. He was hardly the only Burnish recently joining a large enough group of his peers that he was beginning to experience the urge to ‘connect’ with anything that might stay still long enough. It would have been no terrible task to find a perfectly amenable partner within the bounds of Pyropolis. Concerns about _power dynamics_ and _consent_ and whatnot could be put to bed easily enough with a proper conversation, and then he could have spent this evening in _much_ more pleasant quarters than what he feared might wind up being Stub’s men’s room at this rate.

 _“All right,_ now _you’re just making shit up!”_

_“I assure you, I’m quite serious.”_

_“Bullshit! There’s no way that thing actually exists. It looks like a duck had sex with a beaver!”_

_“It’s called a ‘platypus’, and it’s native to—”_

“HEY!” the bartender boomed, slamming a fist down onto the grainy, weathered wood of the bar. “What’d I tell you louts? You keep the decibels down, or I cut off your pizza supply!”

_“Noooo, Stub! Please, have mercy!”_

Stub (aha!) grumbled something under his breath and tossed the dirty rag he’d been using to wipe down the bar over one shoulder as he lumbered off back to the kitchen, perhaps to procure another pizza to sacrifice to the growing pile the “louts” were devouring.

Lio cocked his head, glass of ice (half-melted ice, rather) still pressed vainly to his forehead, to get a better look at the group using Stub’s bar as their own private party suite. The loudest complaints and guffaws seemed to emanate from a brash, buff hairdo of a man who was failing spectacularly at what appeared to be some sort of trivia night. 

“Oh, Stub, I could kiss you!” he cooed when Stub waddled over with a piping hot pie fresh from the oven. 

“I’ll thank you not to. You may have tits like my first wife, Thymos, but that’s about it. Just keep it civil, would ya?”

A chorus of _yes sir_ s went up and was swiftly silenced as all present dug in, and Lio sized them up anew.

The group included two Burnish that he could tell—nothing remarkable, their signatures too weak to do more than tickle Lio’s nose. The ‘Thymos’ fellow didn’t seem to be anything special either, aside from loud and grating, but he was easy enough on the eyes that someone sufficiently desperate might be able to put that big mouth of his to better use. 

Lio’s Promare seemed to agree heartily with this line of thought, pulsing brightly each time Thymos whined or shouted or so much as breathed, really, and—

 _Fuck_. 

It was Thymos. _Had_ to be him. Of all the gin joints…

Lio’s ice-turned-ice-water had now become normal water, and he knocked it back with the same enthusiasm he’d knocked back the (still watered down) beer, cursing for the first time his inability to get drunk. To be Burnish truly was to lead a tortured existence.

“You must be joking…” he muttered to himself. “ _That’s_ the best we can do?”

“Hah! Trick question!” Thymos crowed to the other Louts, slapping the table. “There’s only _two_ states of matter ‘cause gas is _already_ a liquid.”

God. Lio really would be best served paying his tab right now and walking straight out the door, not looking back until safely ensconced once more behind Pyropolis’s sturdy walls.

But he’d come here for a reason, and if he went back unfulfilled now, he wasn’t entirely sure his pride could take the beating. Neither Gueira nor Meis would ever say so, not openly, but any further stubborn refusal to face reality would make him look a bit more like the child he seemed in their eyes, this he knew. 

So he ordered another watered-down beer, which he nursed slowly this time, casting furtive glances at the Louts every so often. At length, Thymos professed a need to step away for a moment and made his way towards the men’s room. Alone.

Lio licked his lips, following Thymos with his eyes as he eased back on his stool. This would likely be his one and only chance, a fact his Promare was hammering home by pulsing insistently in his core. If he was going to do this, it needed to be now, or else it wasn’t going to happen at all.

He shoved his empty mug away and then excused himself—quickly and quietly slipping around the empty chairs and tables to wind his way to the toilets. Taking care not to make any sound, Lio eased open the door, locking it behind himself once a glance at the open stalls showed them to be alone. If Thymos wasn’t amenable, he had no intentions of holding him here—but this way, at least there was no risk of being disturbed. 

He hung back in the shadows of the entryway, leaning only far enough forward to see that Thymos was making use of one of the urinals, whistling the last song the jukebox had been playing and utterly oblivious to Lio’s presence. No sense of self-preservation at all on this one, and from the way his companions had gently teased his failed attempts at trivia, he seemed like a sweet idiot. Just the sort to show someone a good time without any hard feelings. His Promare pulsing inside of him, now a feverish throb, appeared to very much agree.

Lio stepped out of the entryway and settled leaning against one of the sinks to take a good, long look at Thymos. His shirt (emblazoned with _BURNING RESCUE SQUAD NO. 3_ ) was so tight it bordered on indecent, and his pants were baggy enough he could have safely leapt from a plane and floated back to earth. The hair left something to be desired, but well, Promepolitans were weird. Lio could work around it. 

He must have stared for longer than was appropriate, for Thymos caught Lio’s eye, went scarlet, and abruptly stopped his whistling. He quickly stuffed his (impressively sized) dick into his pants and busied himself at one of the sinks closer to his urinal. Lio didn’t break, though, arms still calmly crossed over his chest as he watched Thymos search, in vain, for a paper towel from the empty dispenser, only to give up and wipe his hands furiously on his pants.

“Do you need something, pal?” he huffed, still red-cheeked and frowning. He had his head ducked and looked far less comfortable than a man his size ought to feel in the company of a someone of Lio’s build. He could have probably snapped Lio like a toothpick, if he’d cared to. Lio’s Promare thought it might like to see him try.

“Need something?” Lio repeated, because how did one go about this sort of thing? He’d never propositioned anyone, let alone a total stranger. Did you just come out with it? Was there wooing involved?

“Yeah,” Thymos huffed, finally finding his backbone and drawing up straight. “Can I help you?”

And Lio eased away from the sink, standing on his own two feet. “…Maybe.” This dithering was ridiculous. He needed to make his case, get his answer, and if Thymos was less easy-going than he seemed, move on, Promare or no. He wasn’t about to assault this poor unfortunate because his horny Promare had an interdimensional crush, after all. He jutted his chin out, trying to affect as professional an air as possible, so Thymos took him seriously. “…How do you feel about anonymous bathroom sex?”

“Uuuuhhh…” Thymos released a high, awkward laugh and kept his distance—though Lio didn’t miss the way his eyes did a quick scan of Lio, perhaps unconsciously considering the offer. “Can’t say I’m a fan, thanks.”

And then, clearly thinking Lio was either some manner of pervert or deranged (or both), he made his move for the exit with quick, decisive strides. Lio grabbed him by the wrist as he brushed Lio’s shoulder, though, holding him fast and fixing him with an intent gaze that demanded Thymos at least hear him out. “…You wouldn’t consider it? Ever? With anyone?”

His Promare was firing his blood, and his nerves were frayed to the point he genuinely worried he might snap and do something he would live to regret. He therefore carefully clawed back some measure of composure and loosened his grip on Thymos’s wrist. He needed this guy for a quick fuck—and if he reduced him to ash in a fit because he was too horny to control his own flames, he’d have to start _all_ over again. 

Thymos frowned down at him, gently tugging his wrist free and sizing Lio up properly this time. Lio wondered what he saw: certainly it wasn’t the strong, self-assured Burnish leader his people saw, or even the proud, perhaps overly confident boy Gueira and Meis probably saw. 

Thymos wrinkled his nose. “…You’re good looking. Why’re you trying to pull a random dude in the dirty men’s room of a dive bar?”

“I’m not trying to pull a ‘random dude’. I’m trying to pull _you_.” And really, it wasn’t _Lio_ trying to pull him, it was his Promare, but since Lio’s mental well-being depended on keeping said Promare satisfied at the moment, he was obliging it in every way he physically could.

Thymos’s frown softened, though it didn’t disappear entirely, and he seemed genuinely torn—but then, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the sink behind Lio and appeared to recall just where he was and what he was considering and promptly came back to his senses, shaking his head with a wry, reluctant smile. “…My friends are waiting for me. We’re in the middle of a game.”

Lio scoffed, trying not to betray his disappointment. “Your team’s probably doing better for your absence.”

Thymos perked up at this, brows lifting. “You were watching me?” When Lio didn’t deny it (though he wouldn’t admit to it either), a curling smile tugged at his lips—before being dashed as he shook his head yet again, rubbing ruefully at the back of his neck. “Sorry, just…it feels weird. Like, really weird. I don’t think I can.”

And that was _three_ times he’d been turned down, now—asking again would absolutely be pushing propriety, and Lio refused to use any physical urges he might be grappling with as an excuse to live down to the rest of humanity’s already low opinion of Burnish. 

He released a long, stuttering breath, nodding sharply, and then quickly marched past Thymos, making for the door. He could feel his Promare almost physically bucking inside of him, their connection strained to the point of pain and roiling his stomach with nauseous eagerness. It didn’t understand human concepts like _consent_ , it only wanted satisfaction. Fucking _connection_. And it seemed content to thoroughly ruin Lio to make these urges known. 

He clutched at his abdomen, squeezing as if this might help, and eyed the empty stalls with trepidation—it would certainly not impress Thymos, vomiting Stub’s finest into the toilet, but Lio doubted it could at all be helped. It was by far the more preferable way to embarrass himself.

“Hey…are you all right?”

Did Lio _look_ all right? He shook his head, quickly deciding against making a graceful exit and staggering toward the nearest open stall. It was either that, or empty his stomach all over Stub’s pristine barroom floor. 

But something grabbed his shoulder, tugging, and when Lio went to slap Thymos’s naively offered hand, his Promare sensed an opening and _leapt_ , arcing quite without his permission to close the distance between himself and the wide-eyed idiot getting handsy with Lio when a bathroom quickie had already been swept off the table. 

_Fuck_. With everything he had, Lio grabbed tight to the live-wire connection between himself and his Promare and _yanked_ , praying he could draw that energy back safely within the confines of his body before it maimed this dunderheaded fool for life. Thymos showed he did have some sense, instantly releasing his hold on Lio when the Promare made a go for him—but not before the devilish little flames made contact, leaving whiplike tendril burns up and down his arm, like a brand.

Lio’s stomach fell out, and at least he didn’t feel like vomiting anymore. He gaped, ashen-faced, and took several good steps back, not willing to chance another accident. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” He twisted on his heel, reaching for the lock to the men’s room and scrabbling with butterfingers to unlatch it. “I’m sorry.” This had been a terrible idea from the outset. Meis had tried to warn him that he might be too unstable, that it could be dangerous, and he’d gone and given this poor idiot _scars_ without at least getting him laid for his troubles! 

He would return to Pyropolis, with or without his Promare’s permission, and to the perfectly serviceable bed Gueira and Meis had invited him to share whenever the need arose. It would be awkward, but it would be _safe_.

“You didn’t tell me you were Burnish.”

Lio froze, hating himself for flinching and turning just enough to cast a narrowed glance over his shoulder. Pride would not allow him to take his leave, not now. “…Why should I have? It’s not illegal, not telling.” Not anymore, at least. There had been laws—registries, databases. Tracking drones. But they’d been repealed a decade or more now as public sentiment rallied back toward privacy and the rights thereof. It helped too, a little, that Burnish tended to stick to their own kind, or else openly announced themselves as such in metropolises where such mingling was commonplace. 

Thymos shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean—” He held his arm out, turning it over to marvel at the faint scars spangling his skin now. His companions would wonder how he’d come by them—the Burnish among them would _know_. He clenched his fist and brought his arm back to his chest, cradling it. “I would’ve liked to have known. It’s…I don’t mind it.”

And though this was hardly high praise, the expression on Thymos’s face gave Lio pause: a bit awed, a bit flustered. Certainly not disgusted—Lio was _more_ than familiar with that look on a man’s face. He couldn’t quite place the expression, only knew that it left him feeling a bit discomfited, bordering on _worship_. 

“Well, now you know,” he said, with a snippiness brought on by exhaustion. “I shouldn’t have come here. I apologize for the proposition. And your arm.” He pursed his lips, forcing himself to look upon his Promare’s handiwork once more; disgraceful. “I’m afraid I’m not quite myself right now. Good evening.” And before his Promare could object, he managed the lock and reached for the handle to yank the door open—

“Wait!” Thymos sputtered. “Just—you don’t have to.”

Lio felt his knees lock and panicked, wondering if somehow his Promare had managed to take over his _fucking body_ —but no. It was all him, and despite knowing he was better served _not_ looking, Lio cocked his head just far enough to the side to catch Thymos out of the corner of his eye.

He was still clutching his arm—it had to hurt; Lio had heard Burnish-inflicted burns needed prompt medical attention, or they risked a nasty infection—but he was staring at Lio with a sort of manic desperation, and then he fucking _licked his lips_. “You don’t have to. Go, I mean.”

And in that moment, Lio—who had entered this bathroom on the hunt—suddenly felt he’d somehow become the hunted. “…I’m afraid I do,” he said, wary and with a soft, calming tone. “I told you, I’m not—”

“Not quite yourself? Is the ‘not being quite yourself’ thing…why you’re trying to pick up guys in dirty bar bathrooms?”

Thymos took a step forward, arm dropping back to his side, and Lio turned to face him fully, back pressed up against the door. He looped a mental leash around his Promare, reminding it that even if Thymos made the monumentally stupid choice to try and touch him again, it would _not_ leap out and maul him this time. “It’s complicated,” he said, because he didn’t feel like explaining himself to a stranger when all he needed was a warm orifice of some shape or another.

And then, Thymos was far too close for comfort, entirely in Lio’s space and near enough Lio could smell the fifteen pizzas he’d single-handedly inhaled on his breath. “…You seriously want this?”

Lio had to tilt his head back, now, to look him in the eye. No, he did not want this—not on certain levels. Except on other levels he very much _did_ want it, wanted it right now, wanted it _five minutes ago_. Wanted it however he could get it and, at this point, from whomever was offering. But even if he’d wanted to explain himself, he was too far gone to sit Thymos down for a crash-course lesson on the intricacies of Burnish biology, so he settled for a low and raspy, “ _Yes_.”

Thymos’s gaze traveled down, settling on Lio’s gloved hand—and he reached out with wondering fingers again. Lio opened his mouth, a sharp _Don’t_ on his lips, but Thymos didn’t seem like he’d listen either way.

The mental leash proved useless, but this time when his Promare leapt out, it was with a gentle, cool green spark that kissed the outstretched fingers, knuckles, wrist, as if apologizing for its earlier rashness and inviting more attentions. When Thymos drew his hand back, marveling at the unblemished skin, he laughed around a wondering smile, “…That’s so fucking cool.”

Lio’s heart did a pirouette in his chest, hope sparking. “Does that change things?” he asked, praying he didn’t sound half as eager as he felt.

“Yeah…” Thymos said, grin curling as he slid a leg between Lio’s and cupped his chin in one hand. “Yeah, it does.”

 _Oh_.

It was only as Thymos slid his lips over Lio’s, ratcheting the intensity from zero to sixty in the span of a breath, that Lio recognized his fascination for what it actually was: _this fucker had a Burnish kink_. 

Of _course_ his Promare would go for the weirdo who’d be entirely too eager to spread his legs for pyromaniacs with abandonment issues (Lio was Burnish; he wasn’t _stupid_ ).

This was a recipe for a disaster, of this Lio was certain, but there was no backing out now—his Promare was like a nuclear bomb in his belly, sure to go off if he tried to disentangle himself from Thymos’s embrace. Either that, or it might eat him from the inside out; could Promare do that? Lio didn’t want to find out.

No, nothing for it but to roll with it—so Lio did, with a literal thrust of his hips that had him rutting against Thymos’s expertly placed thigh. Thymos pulled off his lips with a satisfied pop, grinning loopily from under hooded eyes. “I don’t usually do this kind of thing.”

“The three rejections gave me some sense of that, yes.”

“Nothing against you—”

“Then _put_ something against me,” Lio whined, if only to stop the babbling, because his head was starting to clear, and much more of _that_ and he’d come to his senses, which was just a generally bad idea right about now. With one hand, he grabbed Thymos’s collar to draw him back down into a hungry kiss, and with the other, he began picking at the half-dozen brass buttons on his fly. Three in, and he figure he had enough slack to start fishing, so he slipped his fingers under the hem until he brushed paydirt.

Thymos jerked sharply, gasping into Lio’s mouth, and began a strange sort of babbling-laughing-stuttering that eventually coalesced into intelligible speech. “Whoa, can we—whoo, can we maybe, er, slow down? A little?” Lio drew back with a frown; that was _not_ the sort of thing he wanted to hear _right now_ , and Thymos gave a weak smile. “So, uh, my name’s ‘Galo’…”

“I thought it was ‘Thymos’.”

“It is. I mean, most people have two…?” Oh. Lio supposed they did at that. He did, after all—but if Gueira and Meis had family names (or given names), he’d never heard and never asked. He was looking at Lio expectantly now. “…Do I get to know your name before you touch my dick, or…?”

“I’ve already touched your dick.”

“Okay, well do I get to know it before you touch it some _more_?”

Lio sighed, but he supposed it was only proper. He shoved Thymos—fine, _Galo_ —away roughly and began working his belts. “Lio.”

“What?”

“It’s my name. Lio.” God, he was _severely_ overdressed for this sort of errand. Why hadn’t he bothered to change into something less confining before he left Pyropolis? Ah yes—because he didn’t really own anything less confining. Because up until a few weeks ago, _this_ had not been a problem. His frustration peaked as he fumbled again and again with the straps, and he roughly bit the finger of one of his gloves to tug it off so he might get some blessed friction—

“Easy there,” Galo chuckled, less from nerves now and more from genuine amusement it sounded. Perhaps seeing Lio lose his cool had given him some measure of comfort. Well, Lio hoped he appreciated it. “C’mon.” He eased Lio’s hands away, then hooked a finger in one of Lio’s belt loops and began to draw him toward an empty toilet stall.

Lio frowned but went along with it. “I don’t think we need to—”

“Nah, c’mon. If we’re gonna do it in a toilet, let’s at least do it _right_.” He shouldered the swinging door nearly off its hinges and used the toe of his worn sneakers to knock the commode lid down, at which point he plopped down on top of it, releasing his hold on Lio’s belt and patting a thigh in invitation.

Lio wasn’t entirely sure how you did it ‘right’ under such circumstances, but he let himself be guided into Galo’s lap, straddling awkwardly as he settled onto surprisingly muscled thighs. So the baggy pants weren’t just for comfort. 

Galo gave him a satisfied little grin, then began working Lio’s zips and belts with expert fingers, undoing them without any issue whatsoever. Lio frowned. “…You’re good at that.”

“I wear a lot of belts and zips at my day job myself. Nice to see I’m finally putting those skills to good use!”

“Hm. And what other skills do you have?”

“I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue.”

“Oh? Fascinating. Show me.” And before Galo could distract him any further, Lio braced his palms along the sturdy jaw and rejoined their kiss. Whether or not he could truly tie a knot in a cherry stem remained to be seen, but Galo was more than passable enough at kissing for Lio not to care. Careful, questing kisses quickly graduated to the sort of open-mouthed, full-throated panting feats that made Lio’s pants tighten and his heartbeat quicken. 

He shifted uncomfortably in Galo’s lap, easing to his feet again to shimmy his pants off—when Galo placed a hand on his hip and gently but firmly guided him back down again, holding him in place with a tap. Lio drew back with a frown—he didn’t want this to be an all-night affair, and surely Galo needed to get back to the Louts at _some_ point this evening. 

Galo gave a pinched, reluctant smile. “I know I said, but…can we maybe just touch? I’m an old-fashioned guy, believe it or not. At least buy me a drink before you try for anything more serious than a handy?”

Lio kept his features even, though the visible slump to his shoulders surely gave the game away. He wasn’t even sure if that would _work_ —but he’d gotten this much, and seemed to be on the verge of getting at least a little bit more. It seemed inappropriate to ask for anything beyond what Galo was earnestly willing to give, and he didn’t have the energy or patience to explain just why he was rutting against a stranger in a toilet in the first place. 

No, he would focus his thoughts, remind himself that this was, at its core, an intimate act with another person all the same, and perhaps that would be enough to satisfy his ridiculously smitten Promare.

“…Fine. But you’d better make this worth my while.”

Galo, predictably, leapt at the challenge, and with boundaries securely set, wasted no time in giving Lio at last some measure of what he’d come seeking. With a quick glance at Lio’s face for permission, Galo gently traced the soft bulge building in Lio’s pants, helping him ease the material down just far enough his prick was exposed. He knew it was nothing to marvel at—yet Galo did, massaging the undershaft until it plumped in his palm, going pink with flush and viscous liquid beading at the tip. Lio watched, entranced, before his Promare bucked suddenly in his core as if to remind him it was rude to stare and not participate. 

He touched Galo’s hand, a soft warning, and reached past to palm Galo’s crotch and the heat gathering therein. Galo grunted in his ear, jerking, but he didn’t pull away this time or babble any sort of protest, so Lio peeled off his other glove with his teeth and drew down the hem of Galo’s pants just enough he could see that impressive member he’d admired from afar poking its head up, begging for attention.

So he attended it, as it was only polite. He’d only ever jerked himself off, so he had little to work from experience-wise, but Galo didn’t seem to mind his ministrations, releasing short, stuttered gasps with a strained desperation as Lio worked the shaft with long, languid strokes. He found himself distracted from his task by the palpable heat radiating from Galo’s skin, the puffs of breath across Lio’s face, and the furrowed knot to Galo’s brows and tension in his jaw and neck. Lio almost didn’t care about getting off himself. Almost.

“Galo… This isn’t charity work. I came in here for a reason,” he reminded softly, lips brushing Galo’s ear.

Galo responded with a swipe of one rough, calloused thumb over the tip of Lio’s dick that set him spasming in a _most_ unrefined manner. His free hand scrabbled up Galo’s bicep to grip his shoulder, pulling them closer, and his hips jerked up into the tight channel of Galo’s fist reflexively. Lio’s Promare sparked in vivid green over Galo’s fingers as he worked Lio’s shaft tighter, slicker, faster. Lio strained to keep up, to return the favor, but he could feel his orgasm rushing down upon him like a lava floe from the funnel of Mount Fennel. 

Then his vision spangled, everything coiled tight, and in an instant, relief swept through him as he spurted a dribbling release over Galo’s fingers, still tugging insistently to draw every last drop from Lio’s twitching cock. Lio retained sense and strength just enough to draw Galo over the edge with him, and with a long, shuddering grunt, Galo seized sharply, painting long, white stripes over Lio’s pants, the stall walls, and Stub’s otherwise immaculate bathroom floor. 

Slumping back against the commode, Galo heaved great panting huffs of relief, head thrown back. Lio wondered at his stamina; perhaps he’d begged off a proper fuck because he couldn’t hack it, health-wise. Lio wouldn’t deny the thought was something of a disappointment.

“…I changed my mind,” Galo panted.

Those were not the words one wanted to hear when seated atop another’s lap with their everything hanging out. “…About what?”

Galo eased forward again, rolling his neck with a wince. “…Bathroom sex has its perks. Maybe it’s just the ‘anonymous’ part I wasn’t up for.” He pasted on a satisfied grin, and Lio scoffed.

“If you’re _this_ ridiculous after someone tugs on you a bit, I’m glad we went this route instead of something more all-inclusive.” Galo gave a sort of conceited _hmph_ that said he didn’t entirely believe Lio, which was his prerogative. Lio had more important things to deal with now: like making sure they both looked decent when they left this bathroom and that this detour had been remotely _worth_ the trouble. 

The first of those was easily managed: Lio waved a hand over both themselves and the stall, sending out a gentle wave of flame that licked and consumed any organic evidence of what they’d just done. Hell, Stub’s floor was probably cleaner now than when they’d stepped inside. He ought to charge a fee, now that he thought about it.

“You feel more like yourself now?”

“What?” 

Galo wasn’t looking at him; he was marveling at the final vestiges of Lio’s Promare, feisty green sparks nibbling at the sensitive skin between Galo’s fingers like cleaner shrimp. “Before, you said you weren’t quite yourself. Did that help?”

Lio frowned and turned his thoughts inward, shocked at the sudden quiet he found. No insistent buzzing, no more wild Promare that acted out and refused to be bent in ways it didn’t wish. Just calm and quiet and _peace_. Granted, that might just be the orgasmic high disguising things, but he would take it. 

He slumped with relief, rubbing his eyes and nodding. “…Yes, a bit.” He pulled his hands away and blinked away the stars that flashed in his vision, waiting until Galo’s inquisitive face blurred into view. It felt awkward saying this, after what they’d just done, but it needed to be said: “…Thank you.”

“Mm. No sweat.” Casual as anything. As if Lio had merely needed Galo to fetch something from a high shelf for him and not provide a sexual favor. 

Well, if Galo could be what Lio had to assume was his version of ‘professional’, then Lio could as well, and in a fluid motion, he eased up and off Galo’s lap, turning his back as he tucked himself away and refastened his belts and zips with far more grace than he’d demonstrated trying to disrobe only moments earlier. 

“So we have trivia night here every third Thursday of the month,” Galo said, apropos of nothing.

“Your poor companions,” Lio said, ignoring the unspoken question of _Can I see you again?_ and instead casting about for his wayward gloves that had been lost in the heat of things. Lio didn’t want to even _think_ about when he might have to again embark on this sort of mortifying misadventure. Third Thursdays were miles away from his mind at the moment.

Galo only snorted at the backhanded remark, and when Lio spared him one last glance, he found Galo entranced once more by his new scars. Lio decided to leave him to his morbid fascination and, without another word, slipped from the stall and headed back out into the bar proper. He made eye contact with no one, left Stub payment and a generous tip on his way out the door, and took a running leap onto Detroit while it was little more than a high-backed seat, wheels spinning out on the gravel as he tore away into the night. 

Detroit seemed just as eager to return home as Lio—or perhaps it was his own desire to be back in Pyropolis that poured speed into the bike—for they reached the gates in record time. Still, it was late enough that Gueira and Meis were the only ones still out and about aside from the night sentries standing watch at the walls. They met him at the gates, falling into step beside him as they escorted him back to his quarters. 

“Pleasant trip, Boss?” Gueira said, entirely too innocently, because unlike Meis, he liked to live on the edge when it came to flirting with Lio’s authority. 

It had been a faint hope to begin with, praying he might avoid their leering _Told you so_ s, and Lio hardened the set to his jaw, head cocked back as he marched down the block for his cul-de-sac. “Passable.”

“Does ‘Passable’ have a name?”

“ _Gueira_ ,” Meis warned. “It’s none of our concern.”

“‘Course it’s our concern. Colony cock’s nothing to dick around with. No pun intended.” Gueira poked Lio’s shoulder with a gentle teasing. “So we don’t need to make room for a third? Seriously, there’d be no hard feelings—unless you wanted ‘em.”

Lio rolled his eyes and stepped up his pace, relief washing over him when his half-finished reno job fell into view around the corner. There was little better feeling in the world than having a door to slam in someone’s face when you wanted them to stop bothering you. Pyropolis was truly heaven on earth. “No need. Thanks very much for the offer.”

“No need, he says! Whoooo, well now I’m gonna need details, Boss. Let’s start with the basics—bed? Couch? Table? Door-and-or-wall?” Gueira inhaled sharply, whispering excitedly, “ _Shower?_ ”

“Wouldn’t that count as a door-and-or-wall?” Meis mused, and Lio remembered why he was his favorite general.

“Well, I mean, I guess—but some showers have benches, don’t they?”

“When’s the last time you _took_ a shower let alone fucked in one?”

“Oh ho, light of my life! Wind beneath my wings! Keeper of my heart! Are we sharing tales of Dickmas past this eve? Because—whoa, wait—Boss?”

 _Fuck_. Lio had his hand on his doorknob—three steps from all the privacy he could want. “Good _night_ , Gueira.”

“Aww, c’mon! Seriously? We waited _hours_ for you.”

“Sounds like a personal problem. I told you not to wait up.”

“Yeah, but we never listen to you about stuff like that, you oughta know that. Not even a teensy-weensy detail?”

Lio twisted the knob, stepped inside, and turned back to peek through the crack in the door as he slid it shut, drinking in the look of expectant hope painted on Gueira’s features: “There’s only two states of matter.”

Gueira blinked at him stupidly, and Meis sighed. “…What?”

“There’s only two states of matter. Because ‘gas’ is already a liquid.” And with that, he shut the door, bolted it fast, and marched up the stairs for some _well-_ deserved rest, all alone in his very own pile-of-pillows-slash-bed.


	2. Chapter 2

He had privately—and admittedly, more than a bit faintly—hoped that this ‘colony cock’ business might be done with for good now. Perhaps a one-off was all that had been needed, and the strong, sturdy bonds Lio held with Gueira and Meis and the rest of his people might be enough ‘connection’, going forward, to satisfy the randy little Promare that had bonded with Lio. 

But alas, like biological clockwork, his temper grew shorter and shorter as the weeks passed, his sleep restless and his waking moments fitful at the best of times, and while he was able to bear the mounting urges for a full three months (all right, two and a half—and _all right_ , closer to two), it was far sooner than Lio was prepared for when his generals directed him, in no uncertain terms, to settle himself once more—either in their bed or someone else’s.

“You’re acting like a wound up little shit, Boss,” Gueira said, sipping calmly on his coffee like he hadn’t just insubordinated himself right out of Lio’s kitchen. “No offense.”

Meis cuffed the back of his head with a frown, then turned to Lio, crossing his arms and leaning forward onto the counter. “The more powerful the Promare, the more powerful its urge to connect with others.”

“Hence why I’ve gotta get it _daily_ ,” Gueira leered, wincing reflexively when Meis raised another hand in warning.

“I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but this _will_ likely be something that’s, well, a part of you now. You might as well accept it and find a way to enjoy it.”

“ _We_ sure have,” Gueira said, and this time, Meis only took a long, smiling sip of his own coffee.

Lio decided he would fire the both of them—after he sorted himself out. _Again_. 

So off he set, running Detroit all around the Waste in search of someone— _anyone_ , really, except _that_ one—to lend a hand or mouth or other orifice. But just as surely as his ‘colony cock’ had flared up again, so too did that niggling call, nagging in the back of Lio’s mind once he found himself a sufficient distance from the high walls of Pyropolis. It was that same pulsing, tempting _urge_ from before that Lio now recognized as his Promare’s will butting up against his own and trying to overwrite it. Tamp it down though he tried, Detroit still pulled to a stop in the gravel-lined parking lot in front of Stub’s, and while Lio hadn’t been keeping up with the days of late, he could guess it was probably a Thursday.

The poor jukebox was still warbling the same outdated hits from its lonely corner, and sure enough, the Louts had again commandeered several tables for their attempt at ‘Trivia Night’ and were inhaling far more pizza than seemed appropriate, emptying trays as soon as Stub lumbered out from the kitchen with fresh pies. 

Lio didn’t bother banking his flames this time, and the moment he crossed the threshold, two heads among Galo’s companions snapped his way, fixing Lio with curious frowns. Their attention drew Galo’s, who on catching sight of Lio leapt to his feet and, with comical urgency, professed an urgent need to piss—nearly tripping over his own two feet in his beeline for the bathroom. 

Lio made himself pause at the bar and order a drink—no time for glasses of ice he couldn’t feel tonight; it hadn’t helped his headache last time anyway—before he too finally bowed to the unspoken invitation and the insistent urging of his Promare, muttering choice words under his breath as he excused himself to use the facilities.

Galo was sitting on the edge of one of the sinks when Lio walked in, legs swinging as he whistled a painfully off-tune ditty. He seemed in entirely too good a mood—such was, Lio supposed, the benefit of being dumb as a rock—and he had his left arm wrapped in a medi-sleeve, through which could be seen the whiplike scars left behind by Lio’s overeager Promare. He winced inwardly—most Burnish grew out of causing such accidents within a few months of awakening, so this ‘colony cock’ business left him feeling like an absolute child.

Galo slid off the sink, practically bouncing in place when his feet hit the floor. “I thought you wouldn’t be back.”

_I thought I wouldn’t either,_ Lio didn’t say. “You’re smarter than you look, then,” was not much better. Galo didn’t seem fazed, though, leering goofily at Lio as he sauntered forward with what he probably thought was a very sultry gait.

“Thought maybe you found someone else.”

Lio shrugged. “I didn’t need to before.”

Galo’s brows jumped. “But now you _do_? Are you—what was it, ‘not quite yourself’ again?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Y’know, I asked Aina and Remi about that.”

“Who? And about what?”

“My friends.” Galo nodded to the door and, presumably, the Louts beyond. “They’re Burnish too. I asked them.”

And Lio, who had _absolutely_ no desire to know how Galo had casually brought up being solicited for anonymous bathroom sex with a stranger, could only ask, “…And what did they say?”

“They said that doesn’t happen. Burnish don’t _need_ to fuck to keep from exploding.”

Lio rolled his eyes—then wiped a hand over his face. Would they do it here again? God, he really didn’t want this to be a _regular_ thing, sneaking into Stub’s men’s room for furtive liaisons. “I never said I needed to fuck you to keep from exploding.”

“Yeah, but you almost _did_.”

“I didn’t—that wasn’t _exploding_. That was my Promare. It just—” He wrinkled his nose and sighed. “…I think it likes you. For whatever reason.”

“What do you mean ‘for whatever reason’? I’m a great guy! What’s not to like?” His offended frown shifted into one of confusion. “Wait—so why, then?”

“Why _what_?”

“Why’d you come on to me like that? If it wasn’t ‘cause you were about to explode.”

Lio wondered if, should he not respond to Galo’s satisfaction, he might be turned down for any future ‘come on’s and decided to tread with caution. “…I told you. I think my Promare likes you.”

Galo’s brows beetled, a little furrow forming between them. “…So was it _you_ with your hand on my dick, then, or your Promare?”

“I don’t think Promare have hands,” Lio said, because it seemed like the sort of response that Galo might best accept and because Lio honestly didn’t know.

And blessedly, Galo bought it, giving a nodding shrug as if to say _The man makes a good point!_ “Soooo…what now?”

What now, indeed. “…How did you explain your long absence to your peers last time?”

“Ah,” Galo grinned. “Told ‘em I was too drunk to piss right and I slipped and conked my head.” He rapped his skull with a fist.

Lio frowned, impressed. “That’s…actually not a terrible lie.”

“They believed me because it happened once before already!”

Yeah, that sounded about right. “…Well, even so, it probably won’t hold up a second time.”

“Third time,” Galo corrected. “And yeah, probably not…” He trailed off, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “But, uh, if you’re feeling not quite yourself again and need my help to keep from exploding…” He coughed softly. “I, er, I’ve got a place. My own place, I mean. In Promepolis. It’s nothing fancy—only a slight step up from _this_ , to be honest, but…”

The idea of riding into Promepolis to spend the night with what had to be the most outrageously attractive meat head to ever walk the earth did not appeal to Lio, not in the least. But even less appealing was the idea of fucking— _actually_ fucking this time—in Stub’s bathroom, and even less appealing than _that_ was the idea of going back to Pyropolis unfulfilled. No, if Galo wished it, Lio would have him in the middle of Stub’s gravel-strewn parking lot, perhaps up against one of those magnificent motorbikes—just to get his stupid Promare to piss off.

“Trust that I’ve lived more meanly than you can imagine over the years. As long as you’ve got a bed, that should be more than sufficient.”

“Oh, yeah, a bed is—I’ve got a definitely—there is a.” Galo nodded, bouncing in place again. He jerked a thumb in a vague direction. “I’ve, uh, got a bike, too? Outside. Did you want—”

Lio made a face—god, he absolutely did _not_ want. “I’ve got my own transportation. I’ll follow you, if it’s all the same.” Besides, this was merely business, of a sort—there was no sense in giving the wrong impression. To Galo _or_ Lio’s Promare. 

The matter settled, they stepped back out into the bar, Galo darting over to the Louts to make his excuses, and Lio to the bar to pay his tab. He didn’t bother to stick around to hear what sorts of tales Galo would spin to explain his early departure, instead stepping out into the night for what would be his last moment of blessed solitude for the next several hours at best. 

He let his eyes track around the parking lot before he managed to pick out what was, he was certain, Galo’s bike: a gaudy, suped-up thing that seemed a waste of two good wheels. It probably screamed like a banshee when Galo revved it, and Lio gave it a wide berth, unsettled by the paint job. Honestly, _red and blue and yellow_? Absolutely pedestrian.

“Yo!” Galo huffed, bursting through the door with a light jog. “There you are! I kinda wanted to introduce you to the others—”

“No,” was all Lio said. Business, that was what this was and all it needed to be. He didn’t need to become intimately familiar with the Louts—Galo alone would do. “Are we going?”

“Oh, yeah.” Galo fished around in his pocket with a frown. “You said you had a ride too? Where is it?”

Lio sighed and held out an arm, drawing upon the raw, primal power of the Promare that had brought him here and joining it to his will to conjure Detroit in all its slick, gunmetal glory. He took his time with the construct—forging each nut and bolt painstakingly from flame and _really_ making a meal out of it. He could feel Galo gawking, and he found in this instance, he didn’t mind it. Quite the opposite, in fact—the disturbing sycophants who worshipped Burnish as new gods were one thing, but the dark glint in Galo’s eyes when he watched Lio manipulate his Promare? _That_ could fill a man’s head with delusions of grandeur. 

Or maybe that was just the hormones talking. 

Lio finished the construct with a swipe of his hand to lay down the tall, swept-back bucket seat, complete with sharp-toothed stitching, and dusted his hands off daintily, flicking his hair over one shoulder. Galo, by contrast, was far less elegant in his appreciation of Detroit’s finer features, pacing a wide circle around Lio and his bike with a breathless whine. 

“Holy fuck, holy _fuck_ —I didn’t realize you could—I mean, I’ve heard, but I’ve never _seen_ , not in person…” He scrubbed both hands in his ridiculous hair, gesturing wildly at Detroit. “Just, Remi did it on a mission once, making a shield out of nothing that tanked a blast that probably would’ve destroyed his and Varys’s gear otherwise—and, and Aina makes these teeny-tiny little things for show sometimes, like darts when we go out, or these itty-bitty statues that look like those folded paper animals? But—” He shook his head. “They always said it took a lot of concentration, that it was way more trouble than it was worth…”

Lio wanted to scoff— _domesticated Burnish_. What a _waste_. Lio didn’t think there was a Burnish within Pyropolis who couldn’t conjure even the most basic of transport constructs. Even the _children_ liked to play at forging bicycles and big-wheels as they hared off on imaginary Mad Burnish adventures. How those unfortunate Louts could stand it, their power chained even unconsciously, Lio hadn’t a clue, nor did he wish to find out.

“I can’t imagine being without Detroit,” he said instead, struck by the urge to remind Galo that the Burnish _he_ consorted with barely deserved the title. If he was going to be one of those pathetic fools who got hot for Burnish, he ought to at least get hot for a _proper_ Burnish. “It’s not a matter of concentration—it’s sheer will. Will made manifest.”

Galo mouthed _Detroit_ to himself, shrugging. “You just—think about it? And it appears?”

“That’s all any of our constructs are: products of will.”

“Guess you must _really_ wanna get away to make something like _this_ …” Galo said with a soft, low whistle of appreciation, and Lio chose not to remark on the absurdly apt observation. 

Galo ran a hand over one of Detroit’s fenders, admiring the polished black metal, and Lio felt his chest constrict and his pants tighten as the caress echoed through the tender link he held with his construct. _God_ , he wanted to be _anywhere_ but here right now. He would even settle for back in Stub’s bathroom, if this fondling kept up.

It was just his luck that Galo noticed, not nearly as empty-headed as Lio might have hoped. He frowned, noticing the way Lio was holding himself. “…You can feel that? When I touch it…?”

Lio nodded furiously, fidgeting. “Yes. I _can_. And just so we’re clear, it’s no more comfortable riding a Burnish cycle with a hard-on than a non-Burnish one, so can we _please_ get out of here?”

Galo jerked his hand back like he’d been burned, rubbing the back of his neck with a nervous laugh. “Oh. Uh. Sorry. I didn’t—”

“Yes, yes, you didn’t know. _So_?” Lio inclined his head toward Galo’s ridiculous ride. “Unless you’d like to continue feeling up my construct?”

Galo actually seemed to half consider this, but perhaps fearing that Lio _might_ indeed explode this time if he didn’t get what he’d come for, he shoved his hand back into his pocket, came out with his keys, and jogged over to his bike, hopping on in one smooth motion and somehow—Lio had no idea how—managing to fit all that hair under a helmet.

“This had better be worth it,” Lio muttered, half to himself and half to his Promare, as he watched Galo wave for him to follow, and together, they sped into the night.

* * *

Galo had not, it turned out, been exaggerating about the state of his apartment. It was somehow in even worse shape than most of Pyropolis, which itself was more of a collection of ramshackle huts built atop the ruins of an abandoned residential development. 

Still, he’d said it before and meant it: all he was interested in was a bed—which Galo thankfully had. It was only a twin, granted, but Lio wasn’t that picky; it would be more than sufficient for their needs.

Galo puttered about his cluttered kitchen in a fit of misplaced hospitality, inquiring about Lio’s thirst or hunger.

“Please don’t bother,” Lio said, already tugging at his jabot as he eyed the unmade bed in the corner. The sheets would be filthy, and there was only _one_ pillow—blasphemy!—but it would do for what would surely be a brief liaison. “I’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible and be on my way before morning.”

“Oh,” Galo said, tone short and cool, and Lio glanced over his shoulder with a frown to find Galo doing what could only be interpreted as _pouting_. Good god, this was going to take _forever_ if he had to keep coddling the man. 

He sighed, slumping against the jamb and crossing his arms. “Don’t throw a fit. I’m only being missed, is all. People are waiting up for me. I shouldn’t dawdle.”

Galo’s frown shifted to one of confusion. “…People?”

“My—associates.” Gueira’s head would swell beyond measure.

“Burnish?”

“Obviously.”

Galo turned to lean back against his sink, absently wiping down a mug he’d probably rinsed out in the hopes he could convince Lio to stay for tea after. “…So why aren’t you doing this kind of thing with _them_?” He managed to keep it from sounding petulant, but only just barely.

“It…wouldn’t be appropriate,” Lio said.

“But propositioning a stranger in a bathroom _is_? And following him back to his apartment, all alone?”

Lio rolled his eyes at the feigned concern. “I could kill you with a snap of my fingers, you realize?”

Galo hung the mug from a hook above the sink and sauntered forward until he was inside Lio’s space, their knees nearly knocking. “I thought your Promare liked me.”

“It does; I, however, am on the fence and have a hair-trigger.” He snapped his fingers, calling forth a flickering flame that danced in shades of vibrant pink and cool blue, and Galo grinned, the mood restored. He reached to touch the flame, ginger and careful, and it arced to him, nipping at the thin fuzz covering his knuckles and filling the air between them with the bitter scent of burnt hair. 

Lio made a fist, drawing the Promare back into himself and plunging the apartment into darkness save for the buzzing streetlamp just outside the kitchen window.

“…What’s it like?” Galo asked, reaching for Lio’s hand to trace the dips and divots between his fingers. He clearly wanted to thread their fingers together—hell, Lio wanted him to, too—but he didn’t. Wouldn’t, for whatever reason. Like he wanted Lio to ask him to. That wasn’t happening.

“…What’s what like?” Lio said, swallowing and biting back the urge to press their palms together, grab tight, and yank Galo into the bedroom to get this over with. He really _was_ going to kill Galo with a snap of his fingers.

“That place you have to get back to.”

“Pyropolis?” Galo shrugged as if to say _I guess?_ “…It isn’t much, not now. But…” He batted Galo’s hand away, tugging his jabot all the way off and letting it flutter to the floor as he moved on to the buttons on his jacket. “It will be. Some day.”

“Some day?”

Lio nodded, letting his head settle back against the jamb and exposing his throat as he worked off his jacket. “You Promepolitans have your great city-state, but it’s so _staid_. So strict. There’s nothing wild or free about it.”

Galo’s eyes roved the room. “…I dunno what ‘staid’ means, but I don’t think this is it.”

Lio had to snort at that, shrugging off his jacket and plucking at the buttons on his shirt. “It’s not a state of being. It’s a state of mind. _Your_ Burnish are content to conform to whatever rules and regulations are laid down to ensure they stay in their place here—while _mine_ rove free. As Burnish are meant to be.”

Galo gave him a funny look. “Aina and Remi aren’t prisoners.”

“As I said: it’s not a state of being, it’s a state of mind.” He let his shirt hang open, reaching for Galo’s belt. “If you’ve lived inside a cage all your life, you can’t understand what it means to live outside it. Burnish should be with Burnish—it’s best for everyone.”

“‘Burnish should be with Burnish’? You do hear yourself, don’t you? And you don’t think you sound a little hypothetical?”

“I’m sure you mean hypocritical.”

“And you don’t think you sound like that?”

“I think what _I_ want and what my _Promare_ wants are two very different matters.” Lio shrugged, sliding Galo’s belt through its loops and dropping it to the floor with a heavy _THUNK_. “It doesn’t understand the complexities of human nature.”

“Maybe I don’t either, then. Cause you just said you didn’t go to one of your Burnish buddies because it wouldn’t be appropriate—not because your Promare insisted you hit up _me_.” Galo grabbed the wrist that was going for his fly. “I’m not trying to trap you, Lio. You don’t have to be a dick about this. You’re allowed to have fun, even with someone who’s _not_ Burnish.”

Lio frowned. “I’m not being a _dick_. I told you, I’m not myself right now.”

“Then when are you gonna start being yourself? Cause that’s the guy I wanna go to bed with. Not this, I repeat, _dick_ who’s badmouthing my friends when he hasn’t even met them. You say they don’t know anything about what you’ve been through—and I say _you_ don’t know anything about what _they’ve_ been through.”

And Galo stepped away, bending down to snatch up his belt and shuffling into the bedroom with a tight set to his shoulders. Lio swallowed, panic clenching his throat. _Fuck_ , this wasn’t going at all how it was meant to. They ought to just have fucked in Stub’s toilet and been done with it. “I—you’re right. I’m sorry.”

Galo paused, casting a sidelong glance over one shoulder. “…Right about _what_?”

Lio chose his words wisely. “…I’m perhaps being something of a dick. And I shouldn’t blame it on my Promare.”

“No, you shouldn’t. It’s got great taste in men, after all.”

Lio fought the urge to roll his eyes. “…Pyropolis and what it stands for is something of a sensitive topic for me. I’d rather not discuss it.”

“Why? What’s it stand for?”

What part of _I’d rather not discuss it_ hadn’t he understood? Lio firmed his jaw. “It means finally having a place where we can be who we are, living by our own rules. By our own code. It means having a place where the laws protect us, instead of protect others _from_ us. It means growing, and thriving, and never having to be afraid we might hurt someone else, or be hurt in kind. It means having somewhere we can be ourselves, boldly and unapologetically.”

He boasted about being _free_ , but really, all he wanted was to set down roots again and belong somewhere. It wasn’t about being untethered; it was about being able to live as he pleased, with whom he pleased. To someone like Lio, who’d lost everything he held dear, the prospect of scraping back some measure of that stability and steadiness was alluring indeed. Now that he’d found it in Pyropolis and his people, no longer quite ‘Mad Burnish’ in anything but name, he would fight fiercely to protect it. Up to and including debasing himself to ensure he was in peak fighting shape, should the need to stand their ground arise. 

“…Damn,” Galo huffed, a soft, gruff thing that slid into Lio’s ear and down his spine to coil between his legs.

He snapped back to attention, frowning at Galo where he stood just out of reach, shoulders slumped and an expression of bald, worshipful wonder on his face. Lio shivered under that gaze. “What?”

“Nothing, just...” Galo swallowed, smile gone awkward. “You look really good like this.” 

Lio cocked his head, chin jutted. “…Like what?”

“Like this.”

Galo stepped closer, just enough to reach out and hook a finger through one of Lio’s belt loops as he guided him from the cramped little kitchenette into the cramped little bedroom. It was the second time Galo had done so, and Lio wondered absently if this was part of his standard seduction strategy: aggressive retreating. It suited him, if so. 

Galo flicked on a bedside lamp and settled onto the edge of his mattress, Lio following him, until he was straddling him with one knee resting on the bed. He tucked a finger under Galo’s chin, tilting his head up, and studied him. “…What did you tell them?”

“Who?”

“The Louts.”

“ _Who_?”

Lio sighed. “Your _friends_. I wondered what you told them, when you made your hasty exit.”

Galo shrugged. “Just told ‘em they’d have to finish trivia night without me.” He wrinkled his nose in chagrin. “I think Aina knew. Remi, probably, too.”

“The Burnish?” 

“You made ‘em feel all prickly.” Lio doubted that was how they would have described it themselves, but he’d been told his aura could be a bit… _oppressive_ at times. “How come I can’t feel anything?”

“You can feel some things,” Lio reminded, touching the tips of his fingers to Galo’s and watching his Promare arc between them with a cool green glow that threw shadows against the walls. “…And I could make you feel others, if you like.”

Galo’s grin stretched wide, and he hastily peeled his shirt off, leaving that ridiculous hair in an even more ridiculous state, and tossed it into the corner. “Oh hell yeah, I think I’d like.” 

“Mm. But—” Lio said, as Galo wasted no time relieving Lio of his own shirt before moving on to the belts and buckles and buttons he’d been so adept at managing the last time, “I haven’t bought you that drink yet.”

Galo shrugged. “Yeah, but now you aren’t a stranger. You can buy me one next time.”

His tone was too cocky by half, reminding Lio uncomfortably of Gueira, but he didn’t entirely hate it—and when Galo hooked two fingers into the hem of Lio’s pants to help him shimmy out of them, Lio didn’t stop him this time, letting himself be slowly, methodically disrobed and relishing the look of wonder blooming on Galo’s features. Before tugging the material down over the shallow swell of Lio’s ass, he swallowed and spared a quick glance at Lio’s face, seeking permission.

“…I’m not going to stop you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t—I mean, I kind of was. Last time—”

“Last time was _your_ fault, you’ll recall. I was ready and willing.” He laid his palm along Galo’s jaw. “…We aren’t monsters. I wouldn’t force you, if you didn’t want to.”

Galo gave him a funny look, pulling away from the caress. “What? Of course I know that. And why wouldn’t I want to? _Look_ at you.”

Lio felt the prickle of blood flushing his cheeks. “…Well you didn’t want to _last_ time.”

“Yeah, well,” Galo bobbed his head. “…Like I said, I didn’t really know you.”

“…You hardly know me any better now than you did then.”

“That’s not true. I know you can be kind of a dick when you’re horny, but that you’re not too full of yourself to apologize for it. And I know you care a lot about what people think about you—and about all Burnish in general. So from what little I’ve seen, you seem like a good guy. I could do it in a toilet with someone like you.”

Lio let his gaze slide to the rumpled, unmade bed. “…What about in a bed?”

“Oh I could _definitely_ do it in a bed with someone like you.” His grin went wicked, and he yanked Lio’s pants down in one swift movement, nearly knocking Lio off his feet. He teetered precariously in place, hands going to Galo’s shoulders as he steadied himself. 

“A bit of _warning_ would have been nice.”

“Why?” Galo said to Lio’s cock, which bobbed in front of his face like a microphone. “We got where we needed to be.”

Lio stepped out of his pants with a huff, turning away—he knew he was nothing to look at, and it felt odd standing around naked and not _doing_ anything about it. “One of us did, at least. Your turn now.”

Galo tucked his fingers under the hem to his pants, brows waggling. “Did you not wanna do the same to me?”

Lio snapped a finger, calling up a spark of Promare that danced on the tip of his finger. “My way won’t be nearly as fun for you, unless you’d like some matching scars on your legs to go with the ones on your arm.”

“Sheesh, you really _are_ a dick when you’re horny,” Galo grumbled, hopping up just far enough from the mattress to draw his pants down, only to kick them into the pile to join his shirt from earlier. “I’ve gotta wear this thing for six months, you know.” He waved the arm in the medisleeve for show, and Lio winced inwardly, quickly dismissing the spark. That had been in poor taste.

“…I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his own arm sympathetically. He’d never been harmed by Burnish flame, but from what he’d heard, it was an excruciating experience. That Galo hadn’t so much as flinched when Lio’s Promare had lashed out at him was astounding, actually. “I know it’s not an excuse, but I—”

“Wasn’t quite yourself, yeah.” Galo’s tone was playful and understanding this time, though, and he gave a _what can you do?_ sort of shrug. “Lots of people in my line of work get scars, though. It’s no big deal.”

“Oh?” Lio lifted a brow, wondering what exactly his ‘line of work’ _was_ but not quite enough to ask. “Then why the sleeve?”

Galo rolled his eyes. “The Captain made me get it checked out, and it’s just a precaution, to keep me from getting an infection.” He stretched his leg out, poking Lio’s knee with one toe. “You look worried, Lio.”

“Trick of the light, rest assured. And I’m astounded you remembered my name, given your abysmal performance at trivia night.”

“If Modern European History tugged on my dick in a cramped toilet stall, I might remember more about _it_ too.” He held a hand out for Lio to take, waiting patiently. “I like my little Promare lovebites. They’re kinda cool-looking.”

Lio’s features twisted in confusion, but he took Galo’s hand all the same, letting himself be coaxed into the cradle of Galo’s knees. “I don’t believe I’ve _ever_ heard anyone refer to the brands left behind by the wild, lashing tentacles of raw fissive energy from an alien lifeform making contact with unprotected human tissue ‘Promare lovebites’.”

Galo curled his long, calloused fingers around Lio’s cock, and he gave a sharp, stuttering gasp, fingers digging into the meat of Galo’s shoulders where he held on for dear life. “Well ‘Promare lovebites’ is way less of a mouthful, wouldn’t you say?”

No, Lio wouldn’t, but his mind had moved beyond neologisms and was steadily being subsumed by the pressure building in his groin. He splayed his palms flat against Galo’s broad shoulders, then slid them up to cradle his head, dipping in to press their lips together as he rocked into Galo’s fist. He could feel his Promare thrumming with merry satisfaction, a dull but insistent buzz that hovered just beneath the surface of his skin in quiet reminder that while this was _lovely_ , more would be greatly appreciated. 

He lifted one knee back up onto the bed, then both, forcing Galo to lean back onto one elbow as he worked Lio with his free hand. It was an awkward position for both, and too soon for Lio’s pleasure, Galo broke their kiss, rubbing noses and whispering through plumped lips, “Something’s gonna cramp if we keep this up.”

“You started it,” Lio reminded, stealing another kiss from the corner of Galo’s lips and laying down a line of nips and nibbles until he reached Galo’s ear. “And now you’ve stopped it; make up your mind, Galo Thymos.”

“You’re making that kinda hard…”

“That’s the idea,” Lio said, snaking a hand between them and letting his questing fingers trail over Galo’s tight, jumping stomach muscles down through the rough thatch of hair between his legs and the fattening cock nestled therein. It was as impressive as Lio had remembered, and he longed for a moment to stop and appreciate it properly—making a mental note to do so later, for there was bound to be a ‘later’, if Lio’s abhorrent luck was anything to go by.

Galo flopped down flat on the bed, arms thrown wide, and wriggled his hips in invitation. “Well, I’ve heard worse ideas, for sure. Oh—!” He rolled over onto his stomach, nearly knocking Lio off the bed but at least having the decency to provide a lovely view of his bare ass in the doing. “Before we get too, uh, preoccupied…” He stretched one hand over to his bedside table, yanking open the bottom drawer and rifling through the contents before pulling out a nondescript tube of lotion and a box of what Lio had to assume, from context, were condoms.

Galo tossed the condoms to Lio, who snatched them clean from the air and studied them with a frown; what did it say, that Galo kept this sort of paraphernalia in his nightstand? It was none of Lio’s concern, naturally—but his Promare didn’t like the implication, and it squirmed uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach.

“I mean,” Galo said, perhaps mistaking his confusion for hesitation, “you strike me as the type who likes to lead…so I thought I’d leave it up to you, how you wanna go about things.”

Oh. _Oh_ —well that was important, wasn’t it? This wasn’t a simple tug in a bathroom, after all. But while Lio hadn’t had occasion to develop a firm opinion on the matter, and evidently Galo didn’t care either, given the gracious offer he was making—it was still _something_. Something that needed addressing, one way or another, before they proceeded any further. 

Galo gestured vaguely to the box, smiling with a tight awkwardness. “Although, er, those might be—and I’m not implying anything by it—but they’re a little on the, uh, larger side. But, oh! I think I’ve got some more—” He began rifling through the bedside table drawer again, this time further back, with a distracted sort of haste.

Lio ignored him, continuing to stare at the ticking time-bomb in his hands. He was really starting to wish he’d prepared a bit more for this moment. Walking in on Gueira and Meis by accident (even if that accident _had_ happened a dozen different times; the two had absolutely _zero_ sense of time and place and no modesty between them) didn’t quite count as educating himself on coital affairs. At the very least, he should have searched the library’s stacks for something, _anything_ , to ensure he didn’t make a fool of himself as he set off to sow his wild oats.

A nasty little gremlin of doubt wriggled its way into Lio’s mind here, hissing that the offer to ‘leave it up to Lio’ was nothing more than a courtesy to help Lio save face, for surely Galo could _tell_ that Lio’s confidence was largely misplaced bravado and that he hadn’t, in truth, had any real experience to speak of in his young life. After all, even if he’d been inclined to go out and find a partner before now, when would he possibly have had the time or leave to do so? In the buildup to and wake of Pyropolis’s founding, ensuring the safety and security of his people had been at the forefront of his mind, and in those dark, quiet moments where the urge struck and could not be beaten back, cursory self-pleasure had generally been sufficient.

Or at least, it had been sufficient until his horny Promare had started acting out. Now, here he was sitting in his altogether in a stranger’s bed, trying to decide if he wanted to be humiliated now, or later. 

In the end, he decided…to not make any decision at all.

After all, just because Galo had given him the choice didn’t mean he _had_ to take it. And though he generally didn’t like to delegate decisions, preferring to lead by example, he would make an exception just the once, for his battered pride could only take so much abuse.

“Leave it,” he said, and Galo finally ceased his frantic digging through his bedside drawer for Lio-sized condoms that likely didn’t exist, carefully turning back around to gaze up at Lio where he knelt upon the bed, straddling Galo’s lower half. “I don’t want them, and you won’t need them.”

Galo swallowed and gave a nod, throat bobbing. His gaze slid down to the box in Lio’s hand, transfixed, and he carefully licked his lips and cleared his throat. “So then, uh…are you gonna…?”

Lio drummed his fingers over the packaging. “Am I going to—what?” he asked, all innocence.

Galo made a face, wrinkling his nose, then shifted back around to lean back on his elbows. “…C’mon, you’re gonna make me _say_ it? It’s weird, putting it into words.”

“But if you don’t put it into words, how am I to know what you’re asking?” Galo seemed to struggle with this logic, and Lio saved him the trouble. “How about this: why don’t _you_ start things off, however you please…and if it’s not what I want to do, trust that I’ll let you know. _Right_ away.”

“Huh.” Galo ran a tongue over his teeth, mulling the offer over, then gave a sharp, bright nod, evidently decided. “Yeah, that works for me.” A giddy smile tugged at his lips, and he made a grab for the box of condoms still clutched in Lio’s hand. 

Lio, though, tossed the box aside, reminding his Promare it wouldn’t be polite to incinerate them—Galo might have use for them later, and that was no business of theirs. Galo’s eye followed the discarded box with a frown, and he shifted upright. “Wait—you _just_ said…”

Lio placed a hand on Galo’s shoulder, stilling him. “You can’t give me anything I can’t destroy with a thought—and vice versa.”

Galo’s lips formed a gentle _oh_ of realization, and his brows quirked up. “That’s…handy, that is.”

“Mm,” Lio said, taking up the tube of lotion Galo had pulled from his drawer and popping the cap to take a sniff. At least it wasn’t something _floral-_ scented or equally ridiculous. 

Galo watched him, brows knitting. “We, uh…we _are_ gonna need _that_ though, right?”

Lio tossed the tube at him. “I certainly hope so.” And with that, he flopped down beside Galo, the mattress jumping with the impact. “Now, chop chop. I don’t intend for this to take all night.”

Galo eased shakily to his knees, snorting softly. “You could go all night?”

“Burnish have fantastic healing abilities; wouldn’t _you_ like to know?”

“Yeah, I would, actually.” He cut Lio a slanted leer that slid into a befuddled little grin. “…You’re really weird, you know that?”

“I’m nothing of the sort,” Lio said, perhaps a bit more snippily than the moment called for.

“It’s not a bad thing,” Galo reassured him, rubbing his knees before sliding his hands down Lio’s thighs to coax his legs apart so he could settle between them. “Lots of my friends are weird.”

“It’s no compliment to be lumped in with the Louts, you know.”

“Sure it is,” Galo said, as if this were a matter of fact and not drastically differing opinion. “Weird people are more human.”

“Less Burnish?” Lio bit out coolly, and Galo snickered, using his teeth to pop the tube’s cap.

“Do you only listen to every other word people say?” He squirted a dollop of the lotion into his palm, reaching between his legs to work over his cock. Lio made a point not to stare—it wasn’t polite, and also he wouldn’t be able to look away if he allowed himself the luxury, and that would just be mortifying. Galo’s lids fluttered low, and he released a long, slow exhalation as he gently palmed himself, a bright flush blossoming around his collarbones and working its way up that brawny neck of his. Fuck—Lio was going to be stuck staring either way. 

He wanted to squeeze his legs shut again, but Galo was between them now, so he had to lie there, hard and wanting, waiting. He threw his head back, trying to focus on the popcorn ceiling that was peeling in a few spots. “…I suppose I’m used to being listened to, rather than doing the listening.”

“That, I can _definitely_ believe,” Galo huffed, and Lio heard rather than saw the grin in his voice. “You’re really snooty sometimes.”

“You’ve known me for all of an hour at best. Don’t pretend to understand me.”

“I don’t understand you—but I’ve seen more of you in an hour than I’ve seen of some of my closest friends in ten years.” Galo squeezed another dollop of lotion into his palm, tapping Lio’s thighs to encourage him to spread wider—and Lio braced himself. “And you keep assuming every comment I make is a bad thing.”

“How is ‘snooty’ not a bad thing?”

“If it were that bad, would I be doing this?” Galo traced a finger over the gentle swell of Lio’s sack, then down over the sensitive strip of skin just behind and into the lurking divot that made Lio seize. “And if you were _that_ snooty, would you be letting me?”

“Just—get on with it,” Lio bit out, closing his eyes and trying not to squirm.

“See? Snooty. Gotta be prim and proper instead of just enjoying the moment.” Galo circled his finger, pressing just enough to tease but not nearly enough for Lio’s satisfaction. 

“I was ready to have you in a toilet, Galo Thymos. How is that prim and proper?”

“Hmm… It’s like you said earlier: not a state of being, but a state of mind.” He carefully, and with excruciating gentleness, worked Lio open, and Lio had no choice but to sit there and _take it_. “You’re here—but you’re not really _here_.”

“You aren’t…making any sense.” Lio finally gave in, squirming to demonstrate his displeasure with the slow, lazy pace of things. “And I’m not going to _break_ , you buffoon. Put your back into it.”

“Hey,” Galo warned with a frown, placing his free hand on Lio’s thigh as a reminder. “If you wanted to drive, you should’ve said so. But you didn’t, so I get to do things how I wanna do ‘em. And I _want_ —” He bumped his groin against Lio’s ass, rubbing the plump shaft of his cock along the cleft. “—to enjoy the moment.”

And so, because he feared opening his mouth any further might cause Galo to go even _slower_ , Lio lay back with a grudging sigh and let Galo ‘enjoy his moment’. His Promare was doing figure-eights in his stomach, and there was a pressure building in his pelvis that Lio couldn’t quite decide was pleasurable or not, but it was at least bearable, and when he allowed himself to ignore the raw details and focus, instead, on the way Galo was worrying his lower lip, or the crease in his brow that was collecting sweat, or the subtle little flare his nostrils gave when Lio made a noise, any noise…it was not so very terrible at all. He didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about or why Gueira and Meis could hardly control themselves in oftentimes inconvenient moments, but—

“ _O—oh_.” Lio hissed sharply, jerking up onto his elbows and glaring over his stomach at Galo. “Wh—what was—?”

“Mm, there we go,” Galo said, entirely too self-satisfied. “And _that_ is what happens when you stop trying to be so snooty and let yourself just enjoy the moment. Wanna try again?”

Lio could only gape, throat dry, but Galo seemed to take this for permission and crooked his finger again, _inside_ , and Lio’s knees locked against Galo’s sides, holding him tight. He pounded the sheets with both fists and looked away, trying to focus on anything else—there was a strange lamp in the corner, with some sort of illuminated goo rolling around inside. “…Your lamp is broken,” he huffed, because this was important information that needed sharing.

“It’s supposed to look like that—it’s a lava lamp. And this is what I mean when I say you’re here but you’re not really _here_.” Galo leaned forward, ceasing his frustrating probing and bracing his hands on either side of Lio’s head. “If you wanna do something else, just say so. Seriously. I can’t get into it if you’re not into it too.”

And Lio looked at him, saw the concern on his features that was equal parts frustration and confusion, and realized this was as much—if not more so—an experience for Galo as it was for him. For Lio, this was simply about satisfying an urge, quieting the incessant, irritating little whispers that gnawed at his patience and set his skin buzzing and frayed his nerves. He didn’t _want_ to be here, laid out beneath Galo and being unmade by those astonishingly nimble callous-laden fingers—he wanted to be _home_ , in Pyropolis, finishing his evening rounds before returning to his bed that was three-quarters pillows and one-quarter blankets. 

But Galo…Galo _did_ want to be here. Lio had asked him, and he’d said _yes_. He could have said no (had, actually, something like three times), but instead he’d invited Lio into his home, into his bed, and was doing all he could to help Lio enjoy this as best Galo could manage. This was more than just rubbing off together in a dirty toilet—and Lio _really_ ought to start treating it as such, if he was going to bother doing this at all.

“…I’m sorry,” he said, hoping his contrition came through the thick, husky rasp.

Galo gave a half-hearted little shrug. “Yeah, well, I know you can be kind of a dick when you’re horny.” Lio snorted softly. “I don’t mind waiting, ‘til you’re ready.”

The coddling in his tone had Lio on the defensive. “…I do want to do this,” he said, bald-face lie that it was.

“Your Promare wants to do this,” Galo corrected, as if he’d suddenly been granted a degree in interdimensional xenobiology.

“It can be a bit of both, I think.” And all right, it wasn’t _entirely_ a lie—though it wasn’t something Lio earnestly believed to be true, either. It was difficult to know, was all: how did Burnish separate the feelings they innately felt for whoever they chose to sate themselves with from the base instincts of these alien lifeforms? It sounded like an ethical dilemma of the highest order. But Lio was no philosopher—he was just a man, a man with a dick in want of release, and whether that situation was due to his Promare or his own arousal didn’t really matter right now, did it? He tilted his head to the side, drawing Galo’s wrist close and pressing a butterfly kiss at the pulse, gaze shunted up at Galo. “…Try again.”

Galo swallowed with visible effort, nodding sharply, and drew back upright to settle on his knees, taking one last dollop of lotion to go. Lio struggled to embrace the probing fingers this time, spreading his legs to invite them deeper, and felt his Promare perk up in attention. He shivered, sending a sheen of sparks racing over his flushed skin, and Galo hissed sharply but didn’t let up. He worked Lio, gently, slowly, and though he never _did_ brush up against that spot again like Lio had hoped, the sensations wracking Lio’s body were enough to contend with, so perhaps it was for the best. 

The build-up was torture, and Lio knew that if it was this frustrating for him, it had to be ten times that for Galo, so banking on his Promare being able to restore any damage he suffered from not allowing Galo to prep him as he saw fit, Lio eased up onto one elbow, reaching out to loop a hand around the back of Galo’s neck and draw him down for a searing kiss. Before his Promare could get any ideas about administering any more of those ‘lovebites’, Lio drew back with a wet pop and whispered hotly against Galo’s lips, “ _Now_.”

And Galo, it seemed, did not need to be invited thrice this time. He straightened in place, drawing off Lio, and smeared what remained of the lotion onto his dick, which in the time since Lio had seen Galo drop his trousers had grown fat and glistening and painfully red. Galo caught him gawking and asked with gruff humor, “Your Promare’s not gonna sear it off, is it?”

Lio didn’t rightly know, actually—but it had treated Galo tenderly before, bar that first outburst, so hopefully it would be just as accommodating this time. “…I’ll craft you a new one, if it does.”

Galo boggled, likely already envisioning the outrageous construct he would have strapped between his legs, then shook his head to dismiss the daydream and lined himself up with a furrowed brow. “…Don’t tense up.”

“Then don’t make it hurt.”

Galo grinned. “You’re the one who said _now_. You want me to finger you another fifteen minutes?” And before Lio could summon another quip, Galo slipped the head in—quickly following with what felt like a _foot-long dick_ , perhaps thinking if he went in quick and quiet, Lio wouldn’t have time to ‘tense up’.

Lio gasped sharply, fingers scrabbling at Galo’s shoulders and digging into the meat he found there. “F— _uck_.” 

Well, if his Promare hadn’t leapt out of his body and reduced Galo to a sizzling pile of cinders after _that_ , it was never going to do so.

Galo gave a series of short, huffing chuckles, jaw tense and brow knit. “That—was probably—not my smartest move.”

“No _shit_ ,” Lio bit out, tears pricking his eyes. “ _Fuck_ , don’t move.” He knew he sounded like he was begging; that was because he was.

Galo shook his head. “Nope. Nope, no risk of that. _Whoo_.” He clenched his eyes shut and exhaled in one long, unbroken breath. “Why’d you let me do that?”

“I didn’t _let you_ ,” Lio said, wondering how long it would take before his Promare got to work rebuilding the frayed nerve endings and sapped away his pain. It was understandably a bit preoccupied right now, but they _both_ had to share this body, so the least it could do was make the experience a smidge more bearable. “You’re the one who shoved it right in!”

“Well guess what: I get impatient when I’m horny, so sue me!” Galo whimpered softly, shaking his head. “No, no don’t sue me—I don’t have any money. Just. Gimme a minute. I’ll fix this, I promise.” 

He braced both hands on either side of Lio’s head, and from the corner of his eye, through the pricking tears of pain, Lio could make out the sweeping whorls of scarred flesh covering Galo’s left arm beneath the translucent medisleeve. Here was a man accustomed to bearing intense pain if he got what he wanted in the end… Lio supposed he shouldn’t be surprised they were in this state.

“So—what’s your last name?”

Lio blinked, the tears wicking away, and frowned up at Galo. “ _What_?”

“You’ve got one, don’t you?” Galo said jaw still tight and brow still knit as he asked the most inane question in the world at the worst possible moment. “A family name? I guess ‘just Lio’ is cool too, though.”

Lio was still blinking, didn’t think he could stop himself. “I— _what_? Why on earth are you asking _that_?”

“Because I’m curious. It’s just a question. I didn’t ask if you’ve ever killed anyone.” And thank god for that; Lio might have never gotten laid. If this even really counted as getting laid—it was a connection, that much was technically true, but he wasn’t satisfied, and he somehow felt his Promare wouldn’t be either.

Lio shook his head, releasing a huff of irritation. “Fotia.”

“Lio Fotia,” Galo said, running the name around in his mouth and testing it on his tongue. He smiled, the corners of his lips ticking up in amusement. “I like it.”

“I’m so pleased you approve. You’ve just made my night.”

Galo gave him a jaunty little salute of mock appreciation, then seemed to consider something for a moment before his gaze narrowed and his lips slid into a leer. “…So, _have_ you ever killed anyone?”

Lio’s jaw tightened. “What are you doing?”

“What do you mean what am I doing?”

“Why are you asking so many _questions_?”

“God forbid I want to know more than the first name of the guy sitting on my dick.” He frowned down at himself. “Or—the guy I’m…getting sat upon? Wait, no, that’s not right either. Am I sitting? No—no, that’s—”

“ _Thymos_ ,” Lio snapped, bordering on a snarl, and he snapped his thighs closed, crushing Galo between them. “What. The hell. Are you doing?”

And those babbling lips thinned into a secret little smile as Galo ducked his head. “…Trying to take your mind off the moment.”

Lio was blinking again, blindsided. “…What?”

Galo bobbed. “Aaaand trying to keep myself from popping early. I’ve got my pride, after all, and I’m _pretty_ sure you’d burn my hair off if I got off before you, after making you go through all this.” 

_Oh_. And when Lio tested himself, searched for the pricking pain in his backside from being stretched beyond natural means—well, it was still there, but it had dwindled to a dull throb, background noise that Lio could, he was confident, ignore. Especially if other bits started getting their due attention. _Especially_ especially if he could watch Galo come undone in the doing, all that vigor and power pouring into Lio’s body with the same eager blindness that had had Lio saying _yes please_ in Stub’s dirty toilet. His Promare felt like it was doing somersaults in his belly—oh _yes_. They could put up with rather a lot once suitably distracted, it seemed.

“You’d look better, though…” Lio said, reaching up to run his fingers through Galo’s ridiculous locks, tousling them just because he could, and Galo drew back out of reach, tossing his head in irritation.

“You’re not from around here, Mr. Fotia, so I’ll cut you some slack, but I’ll have you know this is the _height_ of fashion in Promepolis.” Lio very much doubted this, but unbidden, his lips curled up and up, until he could feel himself wearing the most absurd, arousal-drunk smile—and then he made the mistake of laughing, a sort of giggle-snort thing that wasn’t attractive at all, but Galo seemed to like it. “Yeah, laugh it up. I’ll wipe that grin off your face.”

Lio walked his fingers along the bits of Galo he could reach—wrists, forearms, biceps, and a nipple tweak that he ultimately decided against. “Mm, I do hope so…”

“Oh.” Galo straightened up, swallowing. “…Are we good now?” 

Lio nodded, the adrenaline in his bloodstream fading fast and leaving him with a sort of lazy buzz he hoped would carry him through to orgasm (Galo’s at least, if not his own). “Do your worst.”

“Yeah, probably best to keep expectations low…” Galo chuckled, and Lio couldn’t tell if the self-deprecation was meant to be humorous or not. Given how the evening had gone so far, perhaps ‘or not’. Still, he’d set aside his own pleasure-seeking just to ensure Lio was along for the ride when they eventually got around to business, and Lio found himself stupidly touched by the efforts to which this Lout was going to help Lio unwind and enjoy himself, even when he failed to see what there really was to enjoy about being biologically prostituted by an alien sharing your body. 

He would let Galo do as he wished, though, and come what may. 

Galo braced his thighs under Lio’s own, adjusting his angle of penetration with a bit of shoving that only drew a tiny wince from Lio, then took a deep breath—and slowly, distressingly lazily, began to pump. Shallow thrusts at first, like an idling engine just warming up, and Lio let his head fall back, closing his eyes and focusing on the slick in-and-out slide, the pressure, the fading burn that reminded him they were joined—connected!—and his Promare might _finally_ be sated properly.

Galo’s breathing grew labored, a sort of gruff huffing and panting that had a rasping quality that made something that was not Lio’s Promare curl warm in his belly. He squirmed a bit, letting his legs fall open further to invite Galo in closer, deeper, and he let one hand snake down over his stomach to tug on his cock. 

“ _Oh_ ,” Galo whimpered, and Lio let his lids flutter open—to see Galo gawking as Lio worked himself to climax. “That’s…that’s not fair…”

“What isn’t?” Lio asked innocently, not breaking his rhythm, only pausing a flash to swipe a thumb over his slit. It came away sticky and slick all at once, and he tightened the channel of his fist.

“ _Lio_ …” he whined, and his hips snapped against Lio’s as he shoved himself forward, hands braced on either side of Lio’s body. “You’re killing me here.”

Lio caressed his jaw with one hand, stroking himself off with the other and snapping his wrist in time with Galo’s punching thrusts of escalating fervor. “That’s the idea. We both die a little, we both live a little.”

“That…doesn’t make any sense…” Galo said, leaning down until his sweat-slick forehead rested against Lio’s. “Can I kiss you?”

Lio tilted his head up, their noses brushing, and whispered against Galo’s lips, “What if I said no?”

Galo whined again, this time a stuttering, ragged thing. “I thought you said Burnish weren’t monsters.”

And Lio smiled. “Yeah, we aren’t.” He kissed Galo, a soft thing against his dry lips before swiping his tongue over the seam and dipping inside to brush against Galo’s. 

Galo surged against him, the whole of his body—lips, hands, chest, _cock_ —pressing against Lio, as if in doing so he thought they might become one, and Lio’s Promare sang within him, sparks shooting off like fireworks behind his eyes. The thrusts came slower, now, but deeper, more intense, and Lio released his hold on his cock to slide both arms up and around Galo, holding him close. He breathed, open-mouthed, against Galo’s lips, and he thought he might have been chanting Galo’s name, but his own ears were too full of the sounds of flesh coming together, the slick squelch of too much lubricant, and the heady, haggard huffing of Galo grabbing onto Lio for dear life and dragging him over the edge as he crested and fell. 

Lio felt Galo spill inside him, and his Promare gave a greedy pulse of elation that washed over Lio in a wave of pleasure. His sac tightened, his cock twitched where it lay wedged between their bellies, and when the rough pads of Galo’s fingers traced the sharp line of his cheekbone with an almost worshipful touch—Lio was gone as well. He seized, arms tightening around Galo’s neck and thighs locking him in place, and he would not be moved until the shudders wracking his body finally died away, leaving him spent and exhausted.

Galo carefully extracted himself from Lio’s now-boneless embrace, and he made a face at the mess between their bellies. “…We really should’ve used a condom…” he muttered, and Lio scoffed, absently waving a hand over his stomach and sending a wave of sparks out to incinerate their leavings. With a bit of concentration, he cleaned himself out as well, then gave a reflexive shiver. Galo frowned. “Hey, you okay?”

Lio waved him off. “I’m fine. It’s only a strange sensation is all.” He pointed to his crotch. “I’m rather _thorough_ in my clean-up.”

Galo colored in the soft glow of that strange ‘lava lamp’ sitting on the other side of the bed. “Guess I’ve got no excuse to use to convince you to take a shower with me now…”

Lio snorted, rolling over and reaching for Galo’s lone too-soft pillow—there was no meat to it! What was even the point?—and began to work his way under the sheets as he felt his Promare finally bank its flames, sated and flooding Lio’s system with enough tranquilizers to fell an elephant. “You were never going to convince me to do that to begin with.”

“No?” Galo said with a teasing innocence as he, too, crawled over the mussed sheets to burrow beneath them. “What, you’re gonna tell me Burnish don’t shower?”

“Not usually. Why would we?” Lio snapped a finger, singeing Galo’s nose with a spark. “You saw with your own eyes how quickly I cleaned myself, inside _and_ out.”

Galo wrinkled his burnt nose, massaging it gently with one finger. “There’s other reasons to take a shower with someone than to get _clean_ , y’know.”

“I’m sure there are,” Lio sighed, punching Galo’s pillow to fluff it, futilely. “But that’s not why I’m here.”

“Mm,” Galo said, reaching to turn off the hypnotic lava lamp. “And why _are_ you here, Lio Fotia? Just so we’re on the same page.”

“I’m here to test the limits of my Promare’s regenerative abilities, clearly,” Lio groused around a yawn, then reached to draw the covers up over himself. “If I can’t sit my bike properly, I’m setting fire to everything you own.”

Galo draped an arm over Lio’s shoulder—and when Lio rebuffed him with a rough shrug, he snorted to himself and rolled onto his other side, placing his back to Lio. “Joke’s on you, because I don’t actually own _any_ of this stuff.”

And it was, to fanciful thoughts of sending Galo’s hole-in-the-wall apartment up in violent flames, that Lio drifted off, both he and his Promare truly content for the first time in weeks. He wasn’t a dick when he was horny; he was a dick _because_ he was horny, and perhaps if he didn’t let things escalate so, he might not be such a terror to be around when his Promare decided it hadn’t enjoyed a ‘connection’ in recent enough memory. 

That was, however, a problem for future Lio to mull over.

* * *

Somewhere in the night, Galo’s arm had managed to drape itself over Lio’s shoulder again, and when Lio roused in the wee hours to Galo’s soft, even snoring, it took him a moment to recall where he was and why. 

Galo—Promare— _colony cock_ —Louts—lava lamps. He groaned inwardly, rubbing the heels of his palms in his eyes as he slowly, carefully navigated the bramble of limbs Galo had used to ensure Lio remained trapped in his bed like some fairytale princess. After several close calls, he had successfully escaped and spent the next ten minutes silently padding around the bedroom and kitchenette in search of his clothing. He managed to find all of the pieces to his ensemble bar one glove and decided to write it off for the time being. He would, undoubtedly, find himself back here sooner rather than later, at which point he could claim it safely, without worrying about knocking his shins into mini-fridges.

The world outside of Galo’s apartment was much like the world inside it: dark, slightly smelly, and blissfully still asleep. Lio looked to the east, and beyond the shadows of the skyscrapers, he could see the faint gray tint of approaching dawn. Gueira and Meis were likely throwing a fit and might well have worn a trench at the main gate with their pacing. That was assuming they hadn’t sent out a search party yet.

When Lio called up Detroit and settled into its perfectly padded seat, he released a long sigh of relief. Never had he so appreciated the fantastic healing abilities the Promare imbued their Burnish hosts with, sapping away the soreness from his overworked muscles. He was still stiff, still light on his toes and easy in his seat, but he’d survived. He could manage this urge, sacrifice a few hours of sleep a handful of times a year. This was simply part of being Burnish, and he had but to accept that. What sort of leader would he be if he couldn’t deal with menial problems like a horny Promare before they began to overtake _real_ issues facing his people?

He glanced up to the frosted-glass window that overlooked Galo’s kitchen sink—no signs of life. He’d made a clean escape. “…I’ll be back for my glove in three months,” he said to no one, though he hoped his Promare heard and didn’t kick up a fuss.

He then eased Detroit out onto the narrow street fronting Galo’s apartment, dodging several impressive potholes, and began the long trek home.


	3. Chapter 3

Galo had been right about one thing (fine, _several things_ , but Lio was only going to give him credit for one): there _were_ plenty of reasons to take a shower even if you didn’t necessarily _need_ to. And one of those reasons was because, well, you just felt more human after a good scrubbing.

But Lio knew he couldn’t chalk his curiously fine mood entirely up to the shower he’d taken promptly upon returning to Pyropolis (well, _after_ enduring lectures from both his generals on imaginary curfews the entire walk back from the main gate to his quarters). No, he was feeling better than ever, in body and spirit, despite snatching only a few hours’ sleep in Galo’s bed after their liaison—and his Promare and its satiation, he knew, were largely to blame.

It was no wonder Gueira and Meis were generally in such good spirits, given how often _they_ indulged. He felt brighter, lighter, he felt like _himself_ again. He hadn’t felt this relieved even after that hasty masturbation session in Stub’s toilet; it truly _was_ about connection, and Lio wondered if this was even a fraction of what the Promare themselves felt in their huge colonies of thousands, part of one great living hive and sharing in the energy of just _being…_

But heady as the high was, it _was_ merely a high. Dangerous as any drug, and he couldn’t let himself get addicted to it. He wasn’t Gueira or Meis, he couldn’t indulge whenever he pleased. He had a job to do, a role to fill, and this was little more than a business transaction. Two parties engaged in a relationship that benefited them both (albeit in drastically different ways), and for Lio, it was simply satisfying a biological need. Not unlike taking a piss. Just because it felt good to do it didn’t mean you should sit on the toilet all day. No, you did your business and then got out, back to work. Back to what _mattered_ , whether the little alien shit sharing your body liked it or not.

So he did just that: he got back to work, capitalizing on his newfound energy and drive to help shore up the constructs forming the walls of the settlement, vet refugee Burnish hoping to formally join the community as Pyropolitans, and oversee the training of squad hopefuls under Gueira and Meis’s Spartan sparring regimens. These were his people, this was where he belonged, and he would do what it took to stay here, standing between them and the harsh judgment of the world beyond their border wall. Galo would be there, undoubtedly, when Lio needed him again, but Lio would not let a few hot flashes a year dictate how he lived his life. For it was _his_ life, not his Promare’s.

He began to keep, of all the ridiculous things, a calendar. The passing of days or weeks or even seasons had never really mattered to him before, but now, he found himself struck by a sudden insatiable curiosity. He’d made it almost three months the last time ( _barely two_ a niggling voice in the back of his mind reminded him, and he soundly ignored it); perhaps with each session, his Promare would learn that it needn’t pitch a fit, that Lio would ‘engage’ with others on a fairly regular basis without too much prodding, and then with each session, he’d be able to last longer and longer, until eventually he wouldn’t even need to go to Galo anymore, with his Promare finally being satisfied with the mundane, platonic connections Lio shared with Gueira and Meis and his people.

But then, barely _two weeks_ later, and he’d cracked the eastern border wall clean through, nearly set aflame some poor Burnish woman’s non-Burnish infant that wouldn’t stop wailing while she waited to be interviewed for admission into the settlement, and laid every squad leader out flat in front of their own teams in a staggering blow to morale during what had been meant to be a training exercise.

“I know we’re starting to sound like broken records, Boss…” Gueira said, dismissing their audience while Meis hung back to make apologies to the squad leaders for their bruised egos. “But I think it’s about that time again.” 

“No,” Lio said, shaking his head and shouldering past Gueira with a purposeful stride. “Don’t be ridiculous; it hasn’t even been _half_ as long as last time—”

“Yeah, ‘cause your Promare is _starving_ for connections, duh.” Lio stormed out of the gymnasium, arrowing for his quarters, but Gueira stayed hot on his heels, lecturing for the entire settlement to hear. “It didn’t know what it was missing when you were out running around on your own, and now it’s going crazy cause it knows it’s part of an aggregate again. You’ve gotta indulge the little critters for a while before they’ll settle down.”

Lio threw a glance over his shoulder and raked Gueira with a dubious frown. “…You told me before that it’s all a matter of strength. That you have to satisfy yours _daily_ because it’s just _that_ powerful.”

Gueira gave him a loopy leer, following Lio up the stoop and into his still-under-construction entryway. Who had the time or energy to spend on frivolous constructs like side tables or stools or chandeliers when all one really needed to get the day started was a coffee maker forged from fire and will?

“All right, so maybe I fudged a _little_. People _do_ fuck for other reasons than because aliens made them do it, yanno. Not saying _you_ have to, but it’s something to keep in mind.”

“Mm.”

“Because maybe if you didn’t have to keep running out of bounds to fix your little ‘colony cock’ issue, you wouldn’t let it build up and then we wouldn’t have to repair the walls for the third time in as many days or risk nearly incinerating new citizens before they’ve signed any paperwork or apologize profusely to the people we’ve charged with keeping our community safe, yeah?”

Lio grimaced. “Fine. I’ll just—keep to myself until…until I’ve calmed down.” 

“Boss.” Gueira stepped in close, guiding Lio into one of the few chairs Lio had felt compelled to keep around because people insisted on visiting him in his quarters instead of letting him be seen around the settlement. “You’re not _gonna_ calm down. That’s not how this works. You fight it, and it’s just gonna get harder and harder to ignore. _Trust_ me. It’s not pretty.”

Lio could hear in his voice that he was speaking from experience, and this somehow made the advice sting all the more sharply. He slapped away the hand Gueira had settled on his shoulder and glared up at him, jaw tight. “Just because _you_ never managed it doesn’t mean _I_ won’t.”

And he knew he sounded like a petulant child, knew every minute he spent fighting this and ignoring his generals’ well-meant advice while wreaking havoc on the very people he was meant to be protecting only set him lower in their sights, but he couldn’t help it. Everything in him railed against this boiling urge that fried his nerves and prickled like he’d bit into a live-wire—he was proud and he was stubborn and he was _adamant_ , and that made him, he knew, a fucking fantastic leader. Someone the likes of Gueira and Meis, certainly no slouches themselves, pledged their fealty to whole-heartedly.

But it also made him lash out at his seconds, driving them away while they muttered _Don’t say I didn’t warn you_ under their breath and left Lio to struggle all by his lonesome. 

It was _too soon_. Lio knew he was being a terror, but he could and _would_ be master of his own fucking body. So he took himself away from the public eye for several long, aggravatingly boring days punctuated by feverish jerkoff sessions that did absolutely nothing to settle his blood, only leaving him more unfulfilled than before he’d put hand to cock. Gueira and Meis came by at odd intervals to check on him and be sure he was at least eating properly, but they never dawdled, and Lio supposed he deserved their silent treatment, given his horrid attitude.

At length, though, he broke—he was only human, after all—and he swore, _swore_ he could feel that draw, that nagging _tug_ calling him back to Galo’s side even from all the way out in the Waste, hundreds of miles from Promepolis.

When he could take the solitude no more, he marched out to the front gates, ordered them opened, and called up Detroit. He could feel Gueira and Meis glowering down at him from the watchtower as if to say _About damn time_ , and he only narrowly held himself back from speeding off with a finger firmly in the air. Had there not been so many eyes on him, he might have indulged.

His Promare wanted him to go fuck Galo? Well he’d _go fuck Galo_. The way _he_ wanted to, this time. He could feel his control slipping away under the weight of his Promare’s whims and wishes, and he was desperate to claw back some semblance of self-sufficiency. This was _his body_ , dammit, and he’d do with it as he pleased.

Thanks to the aforementioned calendar, he was aware this time that it was, in fact, _not_ Thursday, so Stub’s bar was out. Perhaps the Louts visited more often than for their monthly trivia game, but Lio was in no mood for multiple stops on this particular excursion. Instead, he pointed Detroit squarely toward downtown Promepolis and Galo’s decrepit little hovel. Galo would be there—or if he wasn’t, he’d be there _eventually_ , and after two weeks (nearly three!) of waiting, what would another few hours be? 

The streetlights were just flickering on for the evening as the hazy skies overhead bled from the lavenders of dusk to the deep navies of twilight and beyond, and from the roadside, Lio could see the lamps were lit inside Galo’s apartment. He was home. Fantastic.

Lio disincorporated Detroit, spooking an old lady out for an evening stroll with her terrier, and stalked up the stairs to Galo’s second-story apartment, where he banged insistently on the door when his initial polite rapping went unaddressed. One of Galo’s neighbors—a balding middle-aged man with a pinched face and a hunched back—glared at Lio through his cracked door but quickly retreated back inside when Lio snarled, “ _What_?” and spit a Burnish spark his way. God, he really _was_ a dick when he was horny.

After another thirty seconds of pounding on the door—interspersed with wondering how much it might cost to replace if he just blew it off its hinges—Galo finally yanked the door open with an angrily huffed, “ _What_?!”

Lio stood there, in the pool of wan light thrown from Galo’s kitchenette, and wrinkled his nose. “…Where are your clothes?”

Galo blinked, thrown, and it seemed to take him a moment to recognize just who it was standing outside his front door. He glanced down at himself, and the threadbare robe he wore that barely reached his knees, and muttered with a soft whine, “W—I was…I was taking a bath. I only just got off my shift, like, thirty minutes ago. I’ve been up for the past twenty hours.” He swiped a hand across his face to brush back his hair, in more disarray than usual and dark with moisture. “…Uh, I gotta say, I wasn’t…expecting you back. Not so soon, at least.” He pitched his voice a bit lower, as if wary of the nosy hunchback neighbor overhearing. “You left in the middle of the night…”

“Well I’m here,” Lio said matter-of-factly, crossing his arms over his chest. “If it’s a bad time, tell me quickly. I haven’t the patience to deal with delays this evening.”

Galo lifted a brow, then leaned far too casually against his door jamb, eyes roving up and down Lio’s tightly wound body. “And what if it was? A bad time.”

His tone said he was teasing, but Lio was in no mood, and his Promare could _deal with it_. “Then I’ll be on my way and find some other willing body.”

“But Sparky likes me.”

“Spa— _what_?”

“Your Promare.”

Lio wasn’t going to acknowledge ‘Sparky’. “My Promare doesn’t even have a functioning _brain stem_ , one connection’s as good as another. And if—” His patience snapped, and he tossed his head. “This is ridiculous,” he said, turning on his heel. 

Galo grabbed him, _tight_ , at the shoulder—and hadn’t he learned his lesson at their first meeting? Lio whirled to slap his hand away before his Promare could get any ideas, but Galo immediately released him, both hands held up. “Easy. Geez. I didn’t realize it was that serious. Here—come in, before the neighbors get curious.”

“I may have burned that one’s eyebrows off,” Lio said by way of apology, pointing to the door at the right as he allowed Galo to shuttle him through and into the kitchenette.

“Ah, so you met Mr. Rubens? Charming, ain’t he? He probably looks better now. C’mon.” Lio shuffled inside, a bit thrown after his mini-tantrum, and waited while Galo hastily shut the door behind him. “You want something to drink? I don’t have anything strong, sorry. Just tea and some apple juice. You like juice? I can keep some stock if you’re gonna be—”

“Why do you do that?” Lio asked, finding his feet and his tongue once more. 

“…Do what?” Galo asked, hand already on the door to his mini-fridge to rifle through what Lio was certain were paltry contents.

“Offer me food and drink when I come here. You did it last time, too. You know what I’m here for, obviously, and it’s not refreshments.”

“…Well, I mean, yeah, but—” He shrugged. “It’s…polite, isn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to offer guests something when they’re visiting?”

“I’m not _visiting_. And I’m not a guest.” Lio was, however, happy to be offered something, provided that something was of a carnal nature. Was it possible that Galo’s robe was riding up even higher than before? It was _indecent_.

“Then what _are_ you?” Galo asked, entirely too seriously for Lio to have an answer ready. He straightened, tall and ever so impressive, burly arms folded over his chest, which peeked through the lovely V made by the fall of the robe’s flaps. The kitchenette was cozy and close enough that Lio could smell him, fresh and clean from his bath, and he could feel the steam from what must have been scalding water radiating off of him in waves. 

Lio turned away and began tugging at his jabot, pacing out the perimeter of the kitchenette to buy himself some time to collect his thoughts. “…I’m here. That should be answer enough. If it isn’t—” He finally managed the knot, pulling the fabric free, and stuffed it into his back pocket. “—Then I’m quite serious when I say I should be on my way.” He turned to glance over his shoulder and tapped a finger at the topmost button of his jacket, tracing the delicate engraving. “So should I?”

Galo swallowed, watching still from the other side of the room. He was holding his legs at a funny angle. “Should you…?”

“Should I be on my way?” Lio began plucking at the buttons. He’d gotten _very_ good at managing his own buttons and zips during those days of self-enforced solitude. “Or are we done with pretending I’m here for any other reason than to ruin your sheets again?”

“It’s…it’s not _pretending_ …” Galo continued to argue, though his tone had gone a bit husky, and the way he spoke made it sound as if his tongue was too large for his mouth, clumsy and slow. “I’m just…trying to get you to feel comfortable here.”

“I’m very comfortable when I’m here.” Lio shrugged our of his jacket when the last button slipped free. “For certain definitions of comfort. I’d rather not get too… _familiar_ , though. If it’s all right with you.”

Galo made a face that said it was not all right with him, actually. “I only offered you a _drink_. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me.”

Lio managed not to laugh—but only just barely. He hid his face by feigning focus on unbuttoning his fly next. “If you can’t convince me to at least have a drink with you, I’m not sure why you think marriage would even be on the table.”

“I didn’t say it _was_ on the table, I said—” Galo rubbed a hand over his face, groaning. “Fine. _Fine_. Let’s try this: _would_ I ever be able to convince you to drink with me?”

“Drink with you?” Lio asked, shimmying out of his pants to stand there, in Galo’s kitchen, wholly nude. “Or _drink_ with you? Because full disclosure: alcohol does nothing for us. But I _am_ partial to coffee, the blacker the better.” 

Galo had nothing to say to that, and after a long, too-quiet beat, Lio glanced up to find Galo unabashedly staring, backed up flush against his counter. Lio bent to snatch up his pants, then draped them—along with his jacket, single glove, and freshly doffed dress shirt—over one of Galo’s two dining chairs. He was horny, not a barbarian, and he wasn’t leaving here covered in wrinkles like _last_ time.

He covered the distance between them in two long strides, taking Galo by the belt to his robe and drawing him along as if by a leash. Galo said nothing, made no more objections or invitations or silly quips, not even when Lio pulled him around and urged him down to settle on the edge of the mattress. He peeled back the flaps of the robe until Galo sat there, entirely exposed—and predictably hard. He was absurdly easy to bring to attention—but Lio appreciated it just at the moment. It was one less step to getting what he needed, and Lio had never been all that fond of teasing. _Business transaction_ , he reminded himself, because he was dangerously close to forgetting.

He eased Galo’s knees apart with a gentle tap of his foot against Galo’s, then stepped into the cradle between them. With one hand braced for balance on Galo’s shoulder, he reached with the other—slow and careful, giving Galo every opportunity to call it off—to curl long, slender fingers around Galo’s perky shaft, still as impressively proportioned as Lio remembered. He gave it several generous strokes, then trailed his fingers down along the great vein, over the swell of his peach-fuzz sac, to trace the thin strip of skin hidden just behind.

Galo jolted at his touch, thighs reflexively squeezing to bracket Lio in, and Lio gave a gentle reassuring tweak to his shoulder. Galo glanced up, guilty, and ducked his head in apology. “Sorry, just—wasn’t expecting that…”

“…Should I not have?”

Galo swallowed, seeming to choose his words carefully. “I just—assumed, since last time…”

“Last time I was in one mood. Tonight I’m in another.” He lifted a brow. “Will that be a problem?”

And Galo gave him a long look. “…What if it was?” His tone was worlds away from that teasing lilt he’d offered Lio mockingly from the doorway—it was genuine worry, mingled with a healthy dose of curiosity, and Lio heard his earlier self snapping with an impatient snarl _I’ll be on my way_. A threat to toss Galo aside if he couldn’t have his way. 

_Fuck_. How much more of this until he finally learned to not be such a _dick_ when he was horny? Lio took a measured breath, and then said, as soberly as he could manage, “…I’d ask you to help me find my way back to that earlier mood, then. Or else let me try to convince you of what you’d be missing.”

He wasn’t a monster, this he’d told Galo before—but he sure was doing a piss-poor job of proving it. 

Galo’s thin lips stretched into a crooked grin, and he gave an amused snort. “I’m getting good at this.”

Lio’s hackles went up, and he frowned. “Good at _what_?”

“At figuring out when you’re being a dick ‘cause you’re horny and when you’re being a dick cause you’re just kind of a dick by nature.” He didn’t wait for Lio to sputter his objection, only scooted back on the mattress, turning over to root around in the bedside table as he had during their last liaison. He drew out the same tube of lubricant as before and tossed it to Lio—still half empty, from what Lio could tell; not that he cared—then flopped down on his back, arms spread, and sighed with a smile, “Do your worst.”

“You may regret that,” Lio said casually, uncapping the tube and squeezing a dollop of the lotion into his palm. He gave himself several testing strokes before climbing up onto the mattress to crawl between Galo’s knees, slinking forward with predatory intent.

“Only one way to find out,” Galo said, and when Lio drew near enough, he reached out to slip a hand around the back of Lio’s head. Lifting up onto one elbow, he closed the distance between their lips, kissing Lio with an open, honest eagerness that sent a thrill of warmth through Lio’s chest and out to his extremities. All impatience and irritation was instantly dispelled, and Lio met Galo’s enthusiasm with his own, a desperation for connection he was certain stemmed from his Promare but which felt so much his _own_. 

But it _wasn’t_ his own, and nothing good could come from forgetting that. Lio therefore reluctantly broke the kiss, one hand braced against the nape of Galo’s neck as he guided him to lie back down flat. “You’re distracting me.”

“Not distracting. Just helping you enjoy the moment, remember? You had a little trouble with that last time.”

“I suppose I did… Well let’s see what I’ve learned since then, shall we?” He eased Galo’s legs a tick further apart, settling between them and lazily working his own cock with one hand while trailing teasing touches down Galo’s with the other. His Promare still felt like it was restless, unsatisfied—and that was a given, as they hadn’t _done_ anything, but before, it had always been… _eager_ , at least. Excited, pulsing with elation at what they were about to do, a high that Lio had ridden into and beyond orgasm.

Tonight, though, Lio stared at Galo, open and waiting and ever so receptive, just _wanting_ Lio, however he could have him, and yet this maddening little space tit was somehow unmoved. Like Lio wasn’t doing _enough_. Wasn’t giving it anything and everything it wanted. 

And _oh_.

Oh, maybe part of this _was_ Lio, dabbling in a personal fantasy ( _enjoying the moment_ ), rather than doing what he’d come here to do and letting his Promare experience the connection it craved. He was getting in his own way like this, arched over Galo, bodies _this close_ to coming together in a racing, heart-wrecking symphony. 

His Promare _ached_ for Galo, had been trying to connect with him since that first pass in Stub’s dirty toilet. Before then, even—Lio could still feel the metaphysical tug of his Promare reaching out, trying to bring itself— _Lio_ —closer to Galo. 

_All right, then_ , he told it, unsure if it could even understand him—he imagined he could hear it speaking to him sometimes, primitive and primal but ever so insistent, but whether the communication went both ways was another matter entirely. His Promare wanted connection, wanted to connect with _Galo_. He would let it. Or at least, he would try. That ought to earn him some goodwill, and perhaps a reprieve for longer than a handful of weeks this time.

He brushed his fingers in a cursory pass over the dark little divot behind Galo’s sac, more out of admiration and to show himself he _could_ than any real attempt at preparation, and Galo sucked in a sharp breath that drew a crooked half-smile from Lio. If Galo had such a hard-on for Burnish, Lio would give him something to get hard _over_. 

He steeled himself, bracing his knees under Galo’s thighs and lining his cock up. When the tip butted up against that sensitive little furl Lio had become _well_ acquainted with on himself over the past few weeks, though, Galo scrambled up onto his elbows, knees locking against Lio and an expression of alarm on his features. “Whoa— _whoa_. Easy, what the hell are you doing?”

“I should think it’s obvious,” Lio sighed, the half-smile abruptly replaced by an irritated scowl. “Lie back.”

“Wha— _no_. Geez, when you said you wanted to, I assumed you _knew_ what to do. Weren’t you at least paying attention last time?” Galo made to reach for the discarded tube of lotion, but Lio clapped a hand over his wrist, pinning him to the bed. The alarm on Galo’s face quickly shifted to hot frustration as he struggled against Lio, an awkward feat given their positions. “Lemme—go—”

“ _Galo_ ,” Lio said, sharp and gruff and commanding, a tone he knew brooked no argument and that made even the easygoing likes of Gueira and Meis stand up and take notice. He didn’t like to pull rank—rarely needed to—but there were times he needed to remind those he consorted with that there was a reason he was running things. And Galo was about to be his newest pupil. “Lie back.”

Galo still balked, straining against Lio’s grip but no longer struggling. “…Is this ‘cause I rushed things last time?”

“What?” Lio made a face. “Are you— _what_?”

“Because I know it was stupid, and I _apologized_ , but trust me it doesn’t feel that much better from the other end when you take things too fast, so—”

“ _Shut up_.” Lio shook his head, sighing; he could feel his ardor dying like a quenched campfire. “I _do_ know what I’m doing—” Kind of. “And it’s _not_ because you rushed things—” Though by all rights it ought to be. “It’s because—” And he caught himself, because telling would be _telling_ , and Galo knew Lio’s Promare liked him, but he didn’t grasp what _exactly_ that meant. That Lio’s threats to go find more willing partners had been mere bluffs. That this was starting to feel like something much bigger than the both of them, and that scared the _shit_ out of Lio and it ought to terrify Galo too. “Just…” He looked Galo in the eye, forbidding himself to glance away as everything within him pushed him to— _god_ but this man was too bright to stare at head-on, too good and clean. “Trust me.”

“…Trust you,” Galo repeated slowly, holding Lio’s gaze, and Lio could feel him really _looking_ , searching for something beneath Lio’s words. But Galo could look all he liked, and he’d only see what Lio wanted him to. Which he might live to regret, very very soon. Evidently, though, he was content with what he saw, and then he was easing back down flat onto his back again, taking deep, bracing breaths. 

Lio could feel the tension in his muscles, and he struggled to draw back some of the easy, affable mood from earlier. He stroked Galo’s thighs and carded his fingers through the fuzzy trail snaking down from Galo’s navel to his crotch, gently rocking against Galo in a rhythm that sweetly teased of what was coming. “Relax. Hold still. And if it really does hurt, just say so.”

Galo nodded, mostly to himself if the psych-up huffing was anything to go by. “You’re not a monster,” he said, seeming to remind himself, then licked his lips and closed his eyes, tight.

God, Lio hoped this was going to work. His Promare felt like it was bouncing off his mental walls, champing at an existential bit that would do Lio no good at all if he let his Promare run free and this whole exercise went _terribly wrong_. 

But he had to try. There was no _point_ if all Lio focused on was meeting his own needs; he could satisfy himself with a quick private pull. Satisfying his Promare, that was what this was all about.

He ran his hands over Galo’s chest and felt the steady, strong thud of his heartbeat, remarkably calm considering their positions. Lio knew his own was racing, helped not at all by his Promare throwing a _fit_ in his chest. Much more, and it was going to slip its leash. He had to do this, now or never, and pray he wasn’t about to get Galo killed after putting the whole of his trust in Lio.

Will—it was all about will. About letting his will become the Promare’s, and vice versa. He _ached_ for release at this point, and a quick fuck would just not do it, not now. He felt his Promare’s primitive drive to be connected deeper, closer, more than humanly possible. It wanted to reach out and have Galo for itself.

So he let it.

It broke free in a shattering cascade, surging forward like the living thing it was and crawling over and under and around Galo, who lay there in frozen horror just watching it happen as he was cocooned in a warm, throbbing green glow of energy. Lio held his breath, infusing his Promare with the overarching understanding that _we mustn’t harm him, we mustn’t hurt him, we have to protect and cherish and appreciate him_ and praying it understood: Galo was family, Galo was part of their clade, at least for however long this took.

_‘You brought me to him,’_ Lio warned his Promare silently, _‘Don’t take him away from me, not before I’ve gotten off at least,’_

But the cool green glow his Promare gave off—or whatever it was he was seeing—showed no harmful intent, pulsing soft and low and covering Galo’s skin in a bright sheen that hurt to look at head on. So Lio glanced away, focused on what he meant to do and prayed that his Promare would continue doing precisely what it was: protecting Galo.

He—slowly, carefully, but unflinchingly—followed the line of his shaft and slipped two slick fingers between Galo’s firm cheeks. He remained alert for any painful seizing, cries to _fuck wait stop_ , but nothing came. So it was, with a bracing breath and steeled will, he began to nose in. 

It was almost _unbearably_ tight, and halfway through, Lio had to fight the urge to pull out again. This wasn’t going to work, Galo had been right that it didn’t feel any better from this end, rushing into things, and Lio was going to have to sit through a dozen mortifying _told you so_ s if Galo spoke to him again after this. 

“Oh holy _shit_ ,” Galo hissed, and Lio’s found himself blessedly distracted from his own pathetic display. “ _Fuck_ …what the…what the _hell_? Holy…”

Galo’s expression was a shifting mass of emotion as he seemed to find himself torn between fascinated and turned on and abjectly horrified.

Lio swallowed thickly, warning, “Don’t…don’t move…” If Galo so much as clenched a buttock, this was all going to be over in a flash.

Galo gave no impression he heard the plea, but at least he was staying put. “Wh—why doesn’t it hurt?”

Lio’s heart gave a great thud; well there was a tiny bit of good news, wasn’t there? “…I told you. My Promare likes you…”

Galo held his hands up before his face, studying them with a curious expression. “…This is your Promare?” He poked at his palm, experimentally, but nothing happened, and he gave a perplexed little smile. “…Cool.”

Lio took a long breath, wishing he’d just done as he’d meant to instead of deciding to show off at the last minute. “It wanted you. So I’m letting it have you.”

Galo gave a weak chuckle. “Uh. That’s…neat, I guess.” He shrugged. “…Not exactly who I _wanted_ to have me, though.”

Lio felt his cheeks heat at the guileless flattery. “…This is how it has to be.”

“How it has to be? Or how you’re letting it be?” He flexed his thighs against Lio’s sides, and Lio gave a shuddering gasp. “What about what I want?”

“What _about_ what you want?” Lio huffed. He couldn’t follow a simple conversation, he needed to either get _in_ or get _out_ —this half-measure was torture, and Galo was helping matters _not a bit_.

“You think I’d let just anyone do this?”

“How the hell should I know? We’re hardly _bosom buddies_.”

“Okay, fair,” Galo laughed, then sobered, gazing up at Lio with an infuriating calm, and limned in the protective glow of Lio’s Promare, he was a _sight_. Lio’s traitorous cock gave a sympathetic twinge that Galo probably felt. “Well, I wouldn’t. I’m here—right _here_ —cause I like you. I like this. And I think you do too. You said as much—before.”

“I didn’t—” Lio began to protest, before his own words came rushing back: _it can be a bit of both_. He’d said it in the heat of the moment, and he’d only half believed it, but he wanted to _wholly_ believe it. He wanted it to be true—because it made this make sense. It made it feel like more than a one-sided affair and less like he was getting dragged around by a biological whim with no agency of his own. 

No, Galo would not have been his first choice. He wouldn’t have even been Lio’s first choice in that bar. But he was here, lying beneath Lio, bathed in the warm glow of his horny Promare and telling him, unabashedly, that he _liked_ Lio, when Lio was quite sure he’d given him precisely zero reason to do so.

Despite it all, Galo Thymos was enjoying himself. 

And of course he was. Galo wasn’t Burnish, Galo didn’t know what _colony cock_ was, he didn’t hear a voice that wasn’t his own, high and tinny and _begging_ for release, to burn high and bright, forever and ever. He just asked Lio what he wanted, and tried to give as best as he could. And when he asked for something in return…he deserved to have it. 

He deserved to have Lio, whole and present, and if Lio enjoyed it a bit himself in the doing…well, no one needed to know. His Promare certainly wasn’t about to go telling tales, now was it? (Wait, _was it_?)

“Lie back,” Lio said for what felt like the fifth time.

“Why? What’re we gonna do?” Galo’s grin betrayed him as he settled back down.

“ _We_ aren’t doing anything. You’re going to lie there—” Lio grabbed Galo’s hips, bracing himself. “—and take this. Since you asked for it so nicely.”

He let off a flare of Burnish sparks, just for show, and watched as the dazzling motes fizzled, impotent, against Galo’s skin. Galo fell mute at the display, gaping open-mouthed, but his cock betrayed just how very much he’d appreciated the demonstration. It plumped and reddened against Galo’s belly, leaking profusely despite a lack of any attention paid to it aside from a cursory _hello_ stroke. Burnish kinksters were such an easy sell.

Lio released his breath in a long, stuttering exhalation, then closed his eyes and snapped his hips forward—until he was fully seated inside Galo. He opened one eye, then both, and realized quickly that to actually _look_ at his handiwork was to court an early release. He shifted his gaze elsewhere—anywhere—until he found himself staring down at Galo, who had his lower lip tucked under his teeth and was worrying the soft flesh with a dark flush to his cheeks.

Lio frowned—then leaned forward to brace his hands on either side of Galo, swallowing thickly. “…Does it hurt?”

Galo huffed around a smile oozing chagrin. “Nope. It does _not_ hurt. So if you wanted to…pick up the pace? We could avoid a very embarrassing incident.”

Embarrassing? _Oh_. Lio licked his lips, heart beginning to race. “But you wanted this; it would be a shame to rush it…” He gave another long, slow roll of his hips, drawing out nearly to the tip before sliding back in again. How had Galo managed to find that _spot_ last time? Lio hadn’t been able to repeat it in his own private fumblings back in Pyropolis, and he’d been too ashamed to ask Gueira or Meis about it. 

Galo threw back his head and pounded the mattress with an open palm, giving a groan of unfulfilled irritation. “Come _on_ , Lio…” He wriggled impatiently. “I’m trying to wait, but I can only deal with so much! I’d rather have it hurt, I think…”

“Mm, I _knew_ you rushed things last time on purpose.”

Galo gasped in bald offense. “So this _was_ revenge!”

“Not before,” Lio said easily. “But it’s going to be now.” And before Galo could distract him any further, he set to work burning off the pent-up frustration and irritation that had dogged him for two weeks now and _months_ before that. His Promare wanted Galo, wanted to connect to him on as deep a level as humanly possible? Well now was its chance, and perhaps having done so, Lio could finally get back to the business of running Pyropolis and scraping out some manner of a future for himself and his people that _didn’t_ involve being jerked around by their erstwhile interdimensional overlords.

He struck up a pace he could comfortably manage, until he found his feet, an easy in-out-in-out that acclimated him to the sensation. Now that he was no longer hanging half-in, half-out, the pressure was much more bearable, pleasurable even—the contrast of Galo’s tight, slick heat on the downstroke with the complete lack thereof on the up was downright _delicious_ , and he unconsciously increased his pace with each pass, driving harder and deeper and rougher. The mattress sang out a creaky, squeaky rhythm, and Galo continued to huff and pant and pound his frustrations out, legs splayed indecently and hips canted up, inviting Lio as close as he could manage. 

“Lio— _Lio_ …” he rasped, reaching out with one hand until he managed to slip his fingers around the back of Lio’s neck, drawing him down and close. “Lio…” he breathed, wet and warm over Lio’s skin, and cocked his head to slot their lips together in a rough, clumsy kiss. Lio felt his Promare surge around them, like a circuit finally completed.

Galo must have felt it too, for he keened into Lio’s mouth, cries of pleasure pouring down Lio’s throat and warming him in a very different way from his Promare, inside out. It began to bubble over, setting his nerves abuzz, and he felt himself building to something great, the pool of lava churning in his core beginning to boil. 

Lio abruptly broke the kiss—his focus felt stretched between Galo’s pleasure and his own, and the racing of his heart and straining of his patience begged him to pick _one_. So he chose himself, because he was a dick when he was horny, this much had been established, but also because _his_ satisfaction (his Promare’s, too) would beget Galo’s own, and everyone won that way. They both died a little, they both lived a little.

He stopped thinking about Burnish, about Pyropolis and Promepolis, about the Louts, about Gueira and Meis and Gueira-and-Meis. His whole existence in that moment boiled down to Galo and himself and this bed with far too few pillows with far too little stuffing; to the heat from his Promare and from their bodies and from the sheer _force_ of the two of them coming together; to the sounds, indecent and decadent, their names on one another’s lips, searing like a brand. Once you’d heard someone say your name like _that_ , you didn’t easily forget it, and even if his Promare went into hibernation for the next thousand years and left Lio to his duties, Lio would close his eyes in the watches of the night, when it was that sort of dead silence that came with living out in the barren Waste, and hear Galo panting, _begging_ for release, begging for Lio to go faster-harder-deeper, as insistent and siren-sweet as the voice of his own Promare.

It was all he could handle, too big by far to share space with Lio’s dozen other preoccupations, and he let the experience consume him. He clenched his eyes shut, but even from behind his lids, he could see the bright, brilliant flare of their joining sending his Promare _supernova_. It wanted Galo, but Galo claimed to want _Lio_ , and Lio? Lio didn’t know what he wanted, beyond rushing toward that blessed peak, giving Galo the faster-harder-deeper he craved. He wondered if he’d ever figure it out.

If so, it wasn’t happening tonight. Tonight he was just flesh and blood and fire, and he needed _quenching_. He forced himself to look down, to _see_ what he was doing (what _they_ were doing) and traded speed for power, thrusting with bone-juddering force as he drove himself to the bleeding edge of orgasm, straining to breach that final barrier. 

_‘Come on, you little fuck,’_ he growled internally. _‘You want him? Take him. Make your damn connection.’_

His Promare arced around them, throwing up an aurora that cast a rainbow pall over everything in Galo’s ratty apartment, from the rumpled sheets to the discarded bottle of lotion to the lava lamp that Lio couldn’t stare at too long without being hypnotized. He felt something coil within him at the base of his spine with each thrust, tighter and tighter but _closer_ and _closer_ , driving him mad, but still he barreled forward blindly, unable to look away from the sight of his cock, red and glistening and limned in the green glow of his Promare as it buried itself in Galo again and again and _again_ —

Everything shattered, like a broken construct falling in shards of black glass all around, and Lio seized with a sharp, jerking shudder, announcing his release in a harsh bark. Once he crested the peak, his Promare came surging back into him with an almost audible _snap_ , and he felt it as a physical rush, synapses flooded with overwhelming sensation that compounded and compounded and _compounded_ until

everything

went

black.

* * *

When Lio roused, he found himself in rather a different position than he’d been in when he’d passed out. He was still nude—no surprises there—but he had since been…there was no other way to put it: _tucked in_. His head lay atop Galo’s only pillow (that smelled like Galo but was still woefully underfluffed, and Lio made a mental note to rectify this dreadful situation when next he had occasion to call), and the sheets had been drawn up over his shoulders, as if to shield him from a chill Galo ought to well know he could not feel. 

Also, it was morning. At least, Lio very much hoped it was morning and not any later. Gueira and Meis would be having kittens as it was; if it was past noon, they might be well on their way to storm Promepolis with several squads at their back. 

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

Suddenly, Galo was there, blocking the warm sunlight streaming in from the kitchen window. He was still shirtless, but somewhere between Lio passing out and now, he’d found a pair of ratty pajama bottoms that were threadbare and faded with age. At least like this, there was no chance of Lio being roused to draw him back into the bed.

The bed. He was in Galo’s bed—he’d slept there. And from the rumpled state of the sheets beside him, Galo had slept there as well. Lio usually felt wrung out the morning after one of these incidents with Galo, but this time he felt… _refreshed_ , almost. There was still a bit of sleep-grogginess lingering at the edges of his mind, and the world had a funny soft blur to it as it did most every morning before he’d found his way to a cup of coffee, but other than that, he actually did feel, well, _complete_. No venomous little whispers already licking at his consciousness, no grating irritation, no _nothing_. He’d spent an unbroken night sleeping next to this sugar-sweet oaf with terrible taste in clothes and motorbikes, and he felt better for it.

That was something, he decided, he wasn’t going to probe too deeply.

Galo drew closer, passing over with two hands a steaming mug of something Lio’s nostrils instantly recognized: scalding black coffee. “Instant’s all I had. I hope it’s better than nothing?”

Lio’s body reacted before his mind could gain control, and his hands snapped out to accept the mug gratefully. He was already inhaling the fumes like he’d gotten his first fix in forever instead of a matter of hours, when he recalled himself. He took a careful sip, keeping his features even, and mumbled, “…Thanks.”

Galo’s lips stretched into a satisfied grin, and he nodded brightly to the bedside table, atop which sat a pile of rags. “There’s an old t-shirt of mine, too, if you wanna make yourself decent.” He then jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “And there’s breakfast in the kitchen, if you can manage to walk.”

Lio frowned at the insinuation—until he noticed Galo toddling a bit unsteadily himself, and then he found it a very good thing Galo had his back turned now, as he struggled to hide his self-satisfied smile in the lip of the mug, taking another long sip.

He accepted Galo’s offer of breakfast and the oversized t-shirt—but only once the man himself had slipped off to grab a quick shower. By the time Galo emerged once more, dressed in what must have been his work uniform (complete with those hideously baggy pants), Lio had polished off most of the plate, nibbling on the remains of his toast as he took in the pleasant sight of Galo once more freshly bathed. A man could get used to that sort of thing—though Lio reminded himself that he mustn’t.

“So, you finally took me up on my offer of food and drink, huh?” Galo said, nodding to Lio’s plate as he ran product-covered fingers through his hair. “I knew I’d win you over.”

Lio delicately licked the crumbs from his fingers. “It’s breakfast; not a proposal, right?”

“Exactly. Glad to see you can be reasonable.”

“Like you said, I’m only a dick when I’m horny.”

“Eh, you and I both know you’re only _more_ of a dick then.” Lio threw a wadded-up paper towel at his head, and Galo dodged it—then winced at the sudden movement. He braced a hand against the wall, taking a long breath. “Whoo, that wasn’t smart.”

Lio straightened up in an instant. “Are you all right?”

But Galo waved him off with a tight, “Yup. Yup, fine.” He pulled a wry grin. “Just maybe exerted myself a little more than I’m used to last night.”

Lio felt his cheeks prickle with heat, flushing darkly. “I—I’m sorry, I didn’t… I was—preoccupied.”

Galo shrugged. “Not yourself, right? And I told you: it didn’t hurt. Just…used some muscles that don’t normally get that kind of a workout.” He wrinkled his nose. “But if you’re doling out apologies, would’ve been nice if you’d waited ‘til I got off too before passing out. You’re _welcome_ , by the way, for taking care of all the clean-up this time.”

Lio wanted to sink through the floor; instead, he guzzled his coffee, shoulders hunched, and kept his head ducked. “…Well, yes, that was…not my finest moment.” He gave Galo a sidelong look. “…I’ve never tried that sort of thing before. I didn’t realize it would tap me like that.”

“Oh, someone got tapped,” Galo said with a merry leer. “And I don’t think it was you…” He then quickly sobered, straightening, and fished around in his pockets with a distracted air. “So, uh, I’ve gotta head in to work—my shift starts in twenty. You can stay however long you like, though—just take this.” He drew out a single silver key, holding it for Lio to take. “So you can lock up when you go. And maybe not freak out the neighbors next time you…y’know, need something.”

Lio kept a healthy distance, eyeing the key warily. “…I don’t need that.” And he didn’t. He’d had _quite_ enough of terrorizing his people with his stubbornness and refusal to accept the reality of his situation. He was their leader, not a five-year-old. If this was something he had to do, then it would be something he _did_. With regularity. He had no intention of letting himself get pent-up again, for the longer he put it off, the more mortifying it was when he had to come sniffing around for release. 

Galo pressed his lips into a thin line, and he placed the key on the table beside Lio’s empty plate. “Well. Take it anyway. Use it if you need to. Toss it if you don’t. Or—wait.” He rapped a fist against his head, wincing. “No, don’t toss it. Destroy it, preferably. I don’t wanna get robbed.”

Lio cast a slow, appraising glance around Galo’s apartment, of which he could see most every inch from where he sat. “Because there’s so much in here worth stealing. Yes, it would indeed be a tragedy of the highest order. You might be out a whole half-day’s wages.”

Galo showed him a finger, nose in the air. “You live out in the middle of nowhere. What do _you_ know about anything? My stuff could be worth a _fortune_. I’ll bet it’s vintage.” Lio offered an indulgent _hmm_. “Besides, someone could sneak in and murder me in my sleep, and _then_ where would you find a booty call?” 

“Well— _that’s_ —” Lio began to sputter indignantly, but Galo held up a hand, sliding into the seat across from Lio.

“Listen. I get that you like your space. And your privacy. And this isn’t supposed to clash with that in any way. But—” He bobbed his head. “I like this. It’s fun. Even when you’re a dick. So I wouldn’t hate it if it wasn’t another month before you came by again. To visit. Or whatever.”

Lio had nothing to say to that, and Galo didn’t seem to expect anything, only slapping the table as he rose to his feet again. “Right. I’m out! I’ll see you…well, when I see you.” And with only a backwards wave and a graceless stumble as he exited the apartment, Galo was gone.

Lio stared at the closed door for longer than was appropriate after Galo had disappeared through it, then turned to frown down at the little silver key sitting beside his plate, as if it were at fault somehow in how this strange morning had unfolded. And it _was_ , in a way.

He finished off his coffee in one long gulp, wincing at the bitter aftertaste left by the instant mix—that would have to change; anything other than fresh grounds was unacceptable—then went to collect his clothing. He traded Galo’s old faded t-shirt for his own clothes, still neatly folded over the back of one of Galo’s dining chairs—then smiled, quite against his will, when he found his missing glove tucked in with its partner. 

Ridiculous man.

After a beat, he sighed and slipped the key into his pocket, then glanced around to be sure he wasn’t forgetting anything this time—before deciding _fuck it_ , he’d just get it when he next came around.

Which, knowing his Promare, would be sooner rather than later.


	4. Chapter 4

As predicted, Gueira and Meis were apoplectic once Lio finally showed up at the city gates, jerking him through and giving him a thorough pat-down, evidently checking for any broken bones or hairs out of place.

“We were about to head out with Coreolus and his squad, Boss!” Gueira scolded, insisting on escorting Lio back to his quarters with Meis. “You oughta let us know if you’re gonna pull an overnighter.”

“And just where were you and Coreolus’s squad going to look for me?”

Gueira made a face. “…Everywhere, obviously.”

Lio looked to Meis. “You let him get this worked up, for what? You two ought to know better than most I’m more than capable of handling myself.”

“In a fight, perhaps,” Meis said, “But you didn’t go out for a fight. You’re putting yourself in a much more vulnerable position than you’d usually be when you travel outside Pyropolis, and you’re doing so someplace _we_ can’t go.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Gueira said. “At least tell us who it is! So if you don’t show up when you’re supposed to we know whose head to blow off.”

Lio scoffed as he scaled his stoop to his front door, one hand on the railing—

“…When did this happen?”

“What?”

Lio slapped the glossy black wrought-metal railing. “ _This_. I never had a railing on my stoop before.”

Gueira cast a guilty glance to Meis, who shrugged, disaffected. “…Gueira skeet shoots empty bottles over the south wall when he’s worried; I make pointless constructs. Would you rather we blew off steam in more destructive fashions while we were waiting for you?”

“I’d rather you didn’t bother worrying _at all_ ,” Lio sighed, pushing into the half-finished condo he called home. “But if you’re going to insist on it, please refrain from renovating my quarters in the future.”

“Yes, Boss…” Meis grumbled, elbowing Gueira sharply when he snickered superiorly. “Aren’t you at least going to tell us where you were, though?”

Lio opened his mouth to ask how, exactly, it was their business—he hadn’t been in any danger, and they well knew what he’d driven out into the Waste to do. They’d sent him there themselves, after all. But he held his tongue, giving his response proper consideration.

He didn’t want to share the gruesome details of what he’d done or who he’d done it with, but his generals were the only Burnish in Pyropolis whose advice he felt he could reasonably seek. They respected him, sure, but they were also close enough to him they would give him the unvarnished truth and not bullshit him. They kept him honest, and he needed that honesty right about now, even if he had to hear it from a couple of overprotective mother hens.

He glanced between them, then huffed, “…Come in. I’d like your advice on something.”

They both perked up in concert, faithfully dogging his heels as Lio marched into his kitchen. Galo’s piss-poor instant swill was starting to wear off, so he made straight for the coffee maker construct, logging a mental note to pack grounds when next he ‘visited’ Galo’s apartment. It was his one indulgence he allowed himself, and he wouldn’t let his new situation get in the way of it.

Once he and his general had mugs in hand, he had out with it: “…I’ve…got a few questions. About what’s considered…er, _appropriate_ , concerning managing my ‘condition’.”

Gueira slapped the counter loudly and slid onto a stool, shaking a finger in Lio’s face. “I knew it. I _knew_ this would happen if you left Pyropolis. All right, listen: whoever it is, you need to let them know that Burnish assholes are the cleanest things on the planet, so they need to just get over themselves. I mean, it’s a fucking _privilege_ to—”

“ _Gueira_ ,” Meis hissed, and Lio nearly threw his mug across the room, shrieking, “ _No!_ ”

“What?” Gueira asked, blinking, and took a calm sip of his coffee.

Lio ran a hand through his hair, massaging his temple with the other, and released a long sigh. There was no getting around it, he needed to just _ask_. He’d feel better, once properly informed, and he’d finally know if it was at least _acceptable_ to do what his Promare seemed to be urging him to. 

“I’m only wondering if it’s… _custom_ to…to settle your Promare with the same person. Repeatedly. Regularly.”

“Custom?” Meis asked, frowning. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Well,” Lio gestured between them. “To my knowledge you two are…more or less exclusive, no?” They both gave shrugs, which didn’t really answer the question, but if they were happy with such responses, Lio supposed it was none of his concern. “But you’re also the only Burnish I’ve really consulted with on this matter, so I’ve no way of knowing if how _you_ handle it is how _others_ handle it. How _I_ should handle it.”

Meis hopped up onto a stool next to Gueira. “There’s no rules, Boss. None imposed by Burnish, at least.”

“I know that,” Lio said, hating how petulant he sounded. 

“I mean, you handle it how you handle it. The right way is _your_ way. What works for some Burnish won’t necessarily work for others.” And that was not the response Lio had been wanting to hear. It must have shown on his face, for Meis continued patiently, “Like we told you before: it’s all about making a connection. Some people like making that connection with lots of others. And some people like making it with just one person. It’s not always about what your Promare wants, you know. It’s supposed to be a symbiosis: two lifeforms sharing one body, essentially. Sometimes the wants and needs from one bleed into the other and become their own. It works both ways.”

Gueira finished off his mug with a loud slurp. “It’s up to you in the end, Boss. Fuck what anyone else says. Relax and try to have fun with it and stop thinking of it as a _chore_. Me and Meis can hold down the fort for you for a few hours every now and then if you need to slip away for a little ~afternoon delight~ as they put it.”

“Though we’d ask that you give us _some_ sort of time frame when to expect you back in the future,” Meis reminded pointedly.

“Yeah, we’re getting low on bottles for skeet shooting. Might have to start going after the gopher population fucking up the produce fields soon.”

Lio hid his reluctant smile in the lip of his mug. “All right, message received.” He nodded at the both of them. “…Thank you. I’ll consider your advice.”

“No prob, Boss,” Gueira said, sliding off the stool and slapping Lio on the shoulder before shaking a finger in his face. “But I’m serious; if they don’t eat ass, they aren’t worth it.” He then hooked a finger through one of Meis’s belt loops, leading him away, and Lio let his eye linger on them as they went, admiring the casual way they touched each other, the comfortable closeness they indulged in.

They’d been a pair since before Lio had met them, and while they clashed on occasion—often with physically disastrous results; their quarters had had to be reconstructed from scratch no fewer than three times—their bond had never been broken, as far as Lio was aware. Was that because their Promare were drawn together? Or had they been an item before they’d even become Burnish? Meis’s explanation that it wasn’t always about what their Promare wanted sounded nice, and Lio wanted to believe it—but a part of him still balked, feeling like he was lying to himself to justify the fact he didn’t _entirely_ hate what he and Galo were doing.

Gueira and Meis made it look so easy. Made it look like it was fine to _want_ this. To look forward to it. To indulge even without their Promare being involved. They had fun. He thought they might even love each other, though it was difficult to tell—as unabashed as they were with their physical affection, they managed to keep their emotions close to the chest. Even Gueira, who didn’t seem to have a subtle bone in his body, only dared wear an expression that spoke of something darker and deeper than what they showed the rest of the community when he thought no one was looking. Like they wanted to keep it private, a little something just for them.

The idea appealed to Lio on a primal level—he wanted that. Wanted something that wasn’t for Pyropolis. That wasn’t for his generals. That wasn’t even for his Promare—just for _him_.

He shook his head—no, this and that were two entirely different matters. He’d only wanted to know whether it was out of the ordinary to lie with the same person—a total stranger!—over and over again, when you shared no other relationship. And he supposed he’d received the closest thing he was going to get to an answer. 

Any feelings for Galo aside, this _was_ a need, and if he wanted to be able to concentrate on his duties and carry them out as his people expected him to, he needed to stop avoiding the issue. Clearly his Promare had _quite_ enjoyed itself the night before, if Lio’s good humor this morning were anything to go by, so it seemed the best results came when Lio really indulged, letting that connection blaze high and bright and—perhaps most importantly— _long_. Which meant he either needed to bring Galo to his bed, or bring himself to Galo’s. 

He laid a hand over his pocket, feeling the weight of the silver key tucked inside. Well, the former wasn’t really a serious option (the last thing Pyropolis needed was an idiot with a Burnish fetish skulking about), so the latter it would have to be.

Which was easier said than done. It was no small task for Lio to learn to listen to the rhythms of his body and determine when he was just _normally_ pent up and when he needed to break down and pay a visit to Galo. But he already knew, like any good leader, that if he couldn’t solve a problem himself, then he needed to seek help where he could find it, so he made every effort to apply that lesson to his new normal.

He discovered, to his great relief, that if he didn’t let the urges build to the point where he was lashing out at others, release didn’t need to be any special affair. He therefore pushed aside his pride (with no small degree of reluctance) and made a point to visit Galo’s apartment regularly. It wasn’t _every_ day—he had some dignity left, for one, and Galo’s schedule had him pulling graveyard shifts on Mondays and every other Friday for another—but it was often enough that Galo’s neighbors now offered him polite nods when they caught him pulling up on Detroit (well, except for Mr. Rubens, who still gave him a wide berth).

Galo, blessedly, made nothing of Lio’s new schedule, evidently content that Lio was showing up at all. He procured—without even being asked—another pillow, and Lio began to notice that the sheets were now being washed regularly. The instant coffee mix had been replaced by grounds that were stored alongside a maker Galo had bought secondhand before Lio could even offer to create a construct. In a matter of weeks, Galo’s net worth had likely quadrupled, simply by virtue of trying to accommodate Lio’s preferences.

And then Lio found that, quite without realizing it, he’d begun scheduling his visits so that he was arriving in time for dinner—and then earlier, so he could help _make_ dinner, and then earlier still so that he could help Galo shop for dinner until he was somehow spending more time _not_ sleeping with Galo than sleeping with him, which was not at _all_ what he’d signed up for.

This fact had alarmed him when he’d first noticed—this was not his place, and Galo was not his people—but this rhythm was a devious, insidious thing that tempted and teased, and in the dark, private corners of Lio’s mind echoed Meis’s reminder that this was about making a connection with someone. Building something with them that was strong enough it wouldn’t break when you were parted. And while sex _was_ one form of connection, it wasn’t the only one. Perhaps, as Lio had always hoped, his Promare was finally settling a bit, learning that it didn’t need to push for such base interactions when more platonic ones were just as pleasurable. 

It did make him wonder, though: did his _Promare_ want him to spend more time being disgustingly domestic with Galo…or did _he_?

It was difficult to tell, and a touch disturbing too, but the urge was there all the same, almost as strong as the urge to fuck had been on his worst days, so he indulged when he could, because it was just easier to do so, and tried to push his concerns from his mind.

“…That’s still so fuckin’ cool,” Galo grinned, shivering breathlessly as Lio sent a wave of cool green flame skittering over their bodies to incinerate the sticky sweat and other fluids they’d been covered in only a heartbeat ago. “No matter how many times I see you do it.”

Lio sharply flicked the shoulder nearest to him with a finger, as it was the only part of his body he had strength enough to move at the moment. “I don’t so much _mind_ you’ve got some demented Burnish kink, but I’ll thank you not to indulge in it in my presence.”

“ _What_?” Galo laughed, lifting up onto his elbows and fixing Lio with a bemused look. “Burnish kink? I haven’t got a _Burnish kink_.”

“Mm. Sure you don’t.” Lio moved to roll over, arm already outstretched as he searched for the duffel of nightclothes he’d started to bring along for these liaisons. He didn’t like to sleep in the nude in Pyropolis, and he wasn’t about to develop a feel for it _here_. 

But Galo grabbed him by the shoulder, drawing him back down and into his embrace. Lio let it happen, because he was still too wrung out to do otherwise. “I _don’t_. I don’t even know what that is.”

“It’s when all I’ve got to do is _this_ —” He snapped a finger, zapping the tip of Galo’s nose with a spark. “And your dick gets hard.”

Galo rubbed his nose ruefully. “My dick’s not hard.”

“It would be, if you weren’t in the doldrums of a refractory period.”

“…I dunno what ‘doldrums’ are, but you’re gonna have to do more than shower me in pretty sparks to get me raring to go for round three, Lio Fotia.”

“Will I, now?”

“You will indeed. I’m open to any and all attempts, though.” 

And Lio rolled his eyes at that, which drew an affectionate snort from Galo. “You’re lucky my Promare likes you. I’d have no time for your strange Burnish fetish otherwise.”

Galo sighed around a smile, flopping down face-first onto the pillow next to Lio’s. He cocked his head to the side just enough that he could catch Lio out of the corner of one eye. “I _don’t_ have a Burnish kink. Seriously.” Lio nodded, patronizing, and Galo rolled over, studying him with a serious sort of expression. “…Wait, you seriously think I’ve got some, like, weird obsession with Burnish?”

“I’m supposed to believe you _don’t_? It was only after you found out I was Burnish you agreed to sleep with me that first night.”

“Aww, you remember our first night?”

“You _don’t_? It wasn’t even six months ago.”

Galo shrugged. “Well. That wasn’t because you were Burnish.” Lio arched a brow, and he corrected himself: “I mean, not _just_ because you were Burnish. Don’t get me wrong, I think Burnish are frigging _awesome_ , all the cool stuff you can do? Like how you can make stuff out of your flames, and how sometimes they hurt, but other times they make stuff _not_ hurt? That’s so fuckin’ amazing…” He trailed off, gaze gone distant, then recalled himself with a shiver that did nothing to dispel Lio’s suspicions concerning his sexual predilections. “Anyway, sure it might’ve made me want to get to know you better, but it wasn’t why I agreed to go into that stall with you.”

“Hm. I thought you said you didn’t remember our first night.”

“I said no such thing,” Galo leered, brows quirking, and damn, he could be a devious little shit sometimes. Lio didn’t hate that. “And I’m Burning Rescue. Of _course_ I’m gonna get excited when I meet a Burnish.”

Lio frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Uh, _everything_?? I mean, Burning Rescue—Burnish. Duh?”

“…I don’t follow.”

Galo gaped. “What do you _mean_ you don’t— _oh_. Right, I always forget.” He scratched his temple. “You live in the middle of nowhere.”

“I don’t live in the _middle of nowhere_ , I live in Pyropolis—”

“Which is located—where?”

“…Base of Mount Fennel.”

“So yeah, middle of nowhere.” Lio opened his mouth to protest the disparaging tone, but Galo barreled ahead. “I’ve been on the force for _three years_ now—three!—and got top marks in training _and_ didn’t do half bad on my written exams—” This, Lio somehow doubted, even if he had no idea of the context. “But that doesn’t mean shit if you don’t have a partner to suit up with, y’know?” Lio did not know; that was the entire point of this conversation. “Like Varys has got Remi, and I thought maybe Aina and I would have good chemistry together, but she spends half her time in the lab helping her sister with her Burnish research, and you can’t just grab some random Burnish off the street and be like, ‘Hey, wanna pilot a robot with me?’ because trust me, I’ve tried that. It did _not_ go over well, and then I had to do two weeks of sensitivity training…” Galo sighed. “…So I just got a little excited. You were the first Burnish I’d met in a long while who actually wanted something to do with me.”

Lio still was not entirely clear on what exactly it was Galo got up to at his job or why there were Burnish involved, but he shrugged casually. “My Promare had a crush on you; what was I supposed to do?” He didn’t like thinking on it too deeply and had always been glad that Galo seemed to accept it at face value as well.

Galo nodded—then frowned, blinking in thought. “…Wait, that’s always bugged me.”

“What?”

“You keep saying Sparky likes me—but how did it even know I was gonna be at that bar? I don’t think I’d ever met you before then.” Galo tapped his chin, frowning. “No, I’d _definitely_ never met you. I’d remember.” Lio tamped down the warmth that thrilled through his chest at this. “And we go to Stub’s all the time, and there’s _never_ any Burnish there, so I’m not gonna believe you if you try and say it’s your favorite watering hole or something.” He propped himself up with an elbow, staring Lio down. “So it _kinda_ feels like you went there to find me. But how would your Promare know it wanted to find me at all, if we’d never met?”

Lio made a face; Galo could be inconveniently shrewd at times. He sighed, making every effort to dumb down the explanation to toddler level, just to be sure Galo got his answer: “Promare are…a colonial species. They’re accustomed to living in these massive nests of billions, so they…like being ‘connected’. It’s their natural state. When Burnish gather in groups of any substantial size—like, say, in a Burnish _city_ —that urge to achieve connection with one another bleeds over.” He stared at Galo, silently willing him to just _understand_.

Galo returned the stare—then boggled. “Wait, so like, you guys have— _orgies_?!”

“Oh— _god—_ ” Lio sputtered, giving Galo a shove. “ _No_!” Well, at least none _he’d_ ever been invited to. A pity invite from Gueira and Meis certainly did not count. “It’s just…this mounting drive, an incessant call that demands relief. With another. And there’s no ignoring it— _trust_ me, I tried.”

Galo nodded sagely, still frowning. “So that’s the ‘not feeling like yourself’ thing you were talking about?”

Lio nodded. “Pyropolis was only founded very recently; up until the past year or so, I traveled about mostly on my own. Since settling, though, it seems my Promare got it in its head—neural net? Whatever they have—that now was the time to start branching out, as it were. As I believe I’ve mentioned to you before, I’m reluctant to get involved with any of my people, so…” He shrugged. “I went trawling for low-hanging fruit. And you’re what I found.”

“Hey, I’m not _low-hanging fruit_ , I’m a _catch_ , and—wait a minute.” Galo wrinkled his nose. “That still doesn’t answer my question.” And damn, it didn’t. “C’mon: why _me_? You could’ve had your pick of anyone! How’d Sparky even _know_ me, let alone have enough of an opinion to know it _liked_ me? I mean it’s like…trapped inside you, right?” Galo reached over and poked Lio in the chest, waiting for his Promare to show itself—but Lio felt it slumbering (or whatever it was Promare did that mimicked sleep) peacefully deep within his core.

Lio batted his hand away. “The Promare don’t _actually_ live inside Burnish. It’s more like…a tether. They feel what we feel, we feel what they feel. It’s why I’m here with you in the first place.” Galo blinked, clearly not following, and Lio sighed. “It wasn’t my choice. Something—I have to assume my Promare—drew me to that bar that night. And it wouldn’t _shut up_ until I’d touched you. When I told you I wasn’t feeling quite myself, it’s because I _wasn’t_. I was—” He shrugged. “Playing wingman for an alien parasite. No offense, but you probably wouldn’t have been my first choice if who we partnered with had been up to _me_.”

Galo looked like he wanted to complain again—but then his features softened, a knowing grin tugging at his lips. “Wait—something _drew you_ to the bar? You know what that sounds like?” He quirked his brows. “Sounds like we’re _soulmates_.”

Lio gave a disgusted scoff. “ _Hardly_.”

“Nah, c’mon, think about it: You didn’t know me, your _Promare_ didn’t know me, yet there you were, all the same, sitting pretty at Stub’s bar. Just _waiting_ for me to wander into the toilet for my customary post-pizza piss. Face it: it was _fate_.”

“The hell it was.” Lio gave an exaggerated shiver. “The very idea just galls. The notion that there’s someone predestined, like you’ve got no choice?” He scowled at Galo. “Burnish are meant to be free. You can’t possibly understand why that sort of thing would be anathema to—”

“Whoa, easy! You’re breaking out the dictionary words now…” Galo rubbed at the back of his neck, settling down again and staring up at the ceiling overhead. There was a long, thin crack that said the building’s foundation was starting to go, and one day, the very roof was liable to cave in and bury Galo where he slept. “…I guess I can see it. I mean, I didn’t wanna do anything with _you_ when it felt like I was being pressured into it, y’know? It’s way more fun when you get to decide to do it for yourself.”

Lio set his temper aside—it was a waste of a good morning, otherwise. He gave a soft _hmph_ , lips quirking up to one side. “Yes, you certainly changed your tune once your Burnish kink came into play.”

“Geez, for the _fiftieth time_ , I don’t have a Burnish kink! I just _really_ want a Burnish partner to pilot a Rescue Gear unit with! And also…” He gave a weak, self-conscious shrug. “…I mean, I told you before: your powers are _cool_. One of the kids in the group home I lived in for a few months turned out to be Burnish and set a whole dumpster on fire with these _gorgeous_ flames, all purply-pink and blue-green and stuff. Of course, I pissed my pants I was so scared at the time. But hindsight and all that.” He was flushed with pride, and Lio rolled his eyes.

“Hm. So you’re a _pyromaniac_. That’s hardly a step up.”

“Hey, that’s a slur no stand-up member of Burning Rescue will tolerate!” Galo whipped the pillow out from under Lio’s head and whapped him full-face with it.

Lio brought his hands up for protection, scrambling from the bed and dragging the sheets with him for cover. “Cut that out, you idiot!” he squawked.

Galo seemed to have no problem walking around in the nude, leaping to his feet with his arms spread wide. “Then take it back. Say I’m not a pyromaniac.”

“God, fine, you’re _not_ a pyromaniac, you’re an exhibitionist—put some _clothes_ on.”

“Why? We’re just gonna take ‘em off again.” He whipped a hand out, grabbing Lio by the wrist and dragging him back down onto the mattress, where they bounced once before collapsing into a pile of flailing limbs and twisted sheets, breathing heavily. Galo reached out, gently flicking the earring construct Lio wore. A vain affectation, but he liked it. “It’s not pyromania. It’s not a kink or a fetish or _weird_ or anything. It’s just…” He frowned. “Those flames of yours…they’re this demonstration of power that you can see, with your own eyes, right there. They aren’t a weapon, they aren’t a gun or a sword or a tank—they’re just _there_. They’re who you are, and it’s in everything you do. Some people might feel small, seeing that kind of power. But me?” He wet his lips, and this close, Lio could see the way his nostrils flared, pupils dilating. Lio suddenly wished they weren’t tangled up in the sheets now. “Makes me wanna…I dunno how to put it. Not _own_ it, but…something like that. To be seen, maybe.”

“Seen?” Lio said, voice catching.

“Yeah…” Galo nodded. “For someone with that much power, who can do those kinds of amazing things, to look at me. To focus on me.” He shifted on the mattress, managing to slip one tight, muscled thigh between Lio’s. “To want me.” He pulled a crooked grin. “Even if it’s just their Promare that wants me for now.”

Lio swallowed, suddenly conscious of the air growing close and heavy between them. “…I take it your refractory period is up.”

“Is that fancy talk for can I get hard again? Cause yup, I think we’re ready to fire on _all_ cylinders.” He stopped fiddling with Lio’s earring, sliding his palm down to caress Lio’s jaw, and ran a calloused thumb over the sharp line of his cheekbone. “I get I might sound like a dick for saying this, since you keep talking about how much you hate that this is a ‘need’ kind of thing for you, but…I like this. I like you. So—” He sighed, brows lifting in sympathy. “Is there anything I can do? To make it not suck so much that you’ve gotta get laid regularly or you’ll blow up?”

Lio rolled his eyes, biting back a reluctant grin. “I’m not going to _blow up_.”

“No? What’ll happen, then?”

Lio frowned; it had never come to that. “…I don’t quite know.” 

“So then you _might_ blow up.” 

Lio threw off the tangle of sheets, heaving himself up to toss one leg over Galo and smoothly settle atop his stomach. Galo gave a pained _oof_ , but his smile betrayed his eager amusement. Lio laid one hand, palm flat, against Galo’s chest, marveling at the way Galo’s nipples hardened before he’d even touched them, and with the other, he traced the soft, whorling scars spangling Galo’s uncovered arm. They’d faded nicely in the months since he’d received them, but Lio suspect they’d never quite disappear entirely. Would Galo still like this, still like _him_ , in five years? Ten? Fifty? And did Lio care about that? Was it not enough to live in the _now_ , making the best of a bad situation—together?

Lio leaned over him, pitching forward until their noses almost brushed. His hair fell in a soft curtain around them, but Galo kept that steady, sincere gaze fixed on Lio. “You want to do something for me?” he said, and Galo nodded, without a mote of hesitation. Lio could have asked for anything in that moment, he trusted. Instead, he said: “…Make me forget.”

Galo frowned, the wonder in his gaze fading quickly. “What?”

“Make me forget,” Lio repeated, soft and serious, “that I’m not doing this because I really want to.”

Galo swallowed, searching his face—perhaps thinking this was a trap. He wasn’t wrong to be suspicious. This was a dangerous ask. “…How?”

Lio had to look away, inexplicably ashamed. “…I don’t know.”

But Galo drew his gaze back with a finger on his chin, refusing to allow Lio to hide himself away. This _man_. “…I don’t wanna make you. Burnish are meant to be free, right? So I don’t want to force something on you. But…” He bobbed a nod. “I’m a patient enough guy. I can wait.” 

Lio pulled a confused expression. “Wait? For what?”

“Well, if you’ll let me…I can try to make it so you _are_ doing it because you want to. Let you feel at least a little more in control of the situation.”

The confusion shifted to bemusement. “…And how exactly do you intend to do that? Going to seduce me?” Galo gave a self-satisfied shrug, and Lio let himself actually laugh, a throaty, inelegant snort that somehow made Galo’s grin grow even wider. Lio cocked his head, then gave a soft _hm._ “…I’ve no faith at all you’ll _actually_ manage that, but…I can pretend, if you can.”

“Good,” Galo said. “It’s a date.”


	5. Chapter 5

Lio wasn’t usually one to turn away from the harsh light of reality—he didn’t like lies, from others or himself, and preferred to just face whatever life threw his way head-on. 

But he decided that, just this once, for Galo’s sake, he could bend his self-imposed rules and do as he’d said he would: pretend. Pretend that when he called up Detroit and sped away into the Waste, bound for Promepolis, it was because he truly _wanted_ to lounge half-clothed in Galo’s bed watching viral videos on Galo’s work tablet while they waited for their pizza to arrive. Pretend that when he slipped into the stall to shower with Galo before the sun was even up, it was because it was lonely sleeping alone and he genuinely missed Galo’s bulk next to him. Pretend that when he sucked Galo off in the little laundry nook, it was because he simply couldn’t wait until they reached the bedroom to thank him for finding a coffee grinder to go along with that secondhand brewer ( _fuck_ Lio couldn’t remember the last time he’d had fresh grounds!).

He could pretend _he_ wanted these things and wasn’t merely doing them at the biological behest of his Promare. Perhaps, if he pretended hard enough, and for long enough, it would make this all feel less constricting; perhaps it would let him forget, even. Forgetting wasn’t ignoring, after all; it was just moving on to the next level of acceptance.

So he began mimicking with Galo the sorts of things he’d seen Gueira and Meis do—not the _dirty_ things (well, some of the dirty things), but the sickeningly domestic ways in which they interacted when they thought no one was watching. He gentled his language, let himself smile when Galo did something amusing, kissed him before Lio left to return to Pyropolis, kissed him before Galo left for his shift, kissed him on his temple, kissed him on his shoulder, kissed him on his nose.

They indulged in slow, lazy mornings when Galo was off duty and spent movie nights curled up in Galo’s bed, which it turned out could also fold into a couch. They did all those things that Lio imagined couples were meant to do, just enjoying each other’s presence. _Appreciating_ each other as another human being and not just a warm, hard body. 

He even let Galo take him out on ‘dates’, visiting all manner of places he’d never been and doing things he’d never done, even before he’d Awoken. They went to aquariums and batting cages and arcades where Galo embarrassed the both of them trying to win Lio silly, stupid prizes. They even tried having dinner at a fancy, upscale restaurant in the heart of Promepolis’s boutique district that one of the Burnish Galo worked with had recommended (“I don’t wanna know what Remi had to do to get us these reservations—but he’s making me launder his uniforms for two months to make up for it.”)—though they’d both been so uncomfortable with the farce, they’d cut and run before their appetizers had even arrived and taken shelter at a nearby cafe, stuffing their faces with donuts and display-case subs. 

He’d even agreed—on the cusp of orgasm, mind—to accompany Galo to one of his unit’s trivia nights at Stub’s and formally meet the rest of his co-workers. He regretted the decision the moment he’d had sense enough to realize what he’d done, but it was too late to take back now, and this was, he supposed, part of pretending. 

“This is Lio,” Galo said, clapping a hand on Lio’s shoulder, and declined to elaborate as he darted away to find Stub, presumably to get a pizza order started, leaving Lio to make any further introductions himself.

He picked out ‘Aina’ and ‘Remi’ immediately, the Burnish members of Galo’s Burning Rescue unit—they were both fixing him with appraising stares that some might have found hostile but Lio understood to simply be a reflection of their discomfort. Even banked as it was, he knew his Promare must be prickling them, a fierce irritation whose source they couldn’t pinpoint, but that was their problem, not his. If either of them recognized Lio’s signature from Thursdays past, they were polite enough to keep their mouths shut, for which Lio was grateful. He and Galo hadn’t quite put a name to this… _association_ they had, and if pressed to explain tonight, Lio wasn’t sure how he was going to—

“So how do you know Galo?” A new voice—and Lio combed through his memories to match the face with a name: Varys Truss. The Burnish Remi’s partner, whatever that entailed. He was a brick house of a man who looked like he could snap Lio in two with a sneeze. 

“I’m helping him out with a little problem,” Galo answered, smoothly sliding back into the conversation. “Stub says it’ll be fifteen minutes on the first round. Anyone order drinks yet?”

Galo claimed Lio for his team, which he’d probably thought a genius move initially, until he learned the hard way that Lio had Awoken woefully young and failed to complete much of any schooling beyond his primary years. He was well-spoken and well-traveled, but when it came to modern pop culture, he was no more likely to rescue them from having to foot the group’s bill for the evening than Galo was. 

“I’m gonna get kicked out of my apartment…” Galo moaned into the sticky tabletop during a break. “Varys alone can put away, like, two months’ rent worth of booze and pizza…”

“Maybe Stub will hire you,” Lio soothed, patting him genially on the back. 

“Nah, my boobs aren’t big enough…” He cocked his head to the side, frowning up at Lio with narrowed eyes. “You’re bad luck. I don’t usually lose this badly.”

“I’m sure that’s simply because you’re usually partnered with someone who actually knows answers to questions beyond those pertaining to cat videos and infomercial products.”

“I thought you were _smart_! You’re always using complicated words no one’s ever heard of—and you wear a _scarf_.”

“It’s a _jabot_ , you heathen.”

“See? A complicated word no one’s ever heard of _and_ a scarf, all in one.” He shifted back upright, wrinkling his nose and pushing his half-empty mug away with one finger. “Maybe I’m drunk… How come you’re not drunk? You’re stick-thin and you’ve had as many of these as I have…”

“You know why,” Lio sighed, finishing off the rest of Galo’s mug. “I can’t get drunk. Neither can your Aina or Remi.”

“They’re not _my_ Aina or Remi. _You’re_ my Aina or Remi. Wait—that’s backwards.” He shook his head, rubbing his eyes vigorously, and Lio let himself chuckle fondly at the sight, because this was all pretend, so he was allowed to.

Still stroking Galo’s back, Lio turned his attention over to the table where Varys sat with the aforementioned Aina and Remi. Both the Burnish were still giving him uncomfortable looks, irritating enough for Lio that if he hadn’t been there as Galo’s guest, he might’ve been tempted to release a microflare just to spook them. Maybe they were wary of the wild Burnish who lived in the Waste—Lio might have been, in their position. Maybe they thought he had designs on Galo. Maybe they thought he was going to snap and burn Stub’s bar to the ground in a fit of pyromaniacal glee like the Burnish back in the early days of the Great World Blaze. Or maybe they just didn’t like him. The feeling was mutual.

If they’d been part of his clade, like Gueira and Meis and everyone welcomed through the gates of Pyropolis, they’d doubtless feel different. As it was, he knew they felt his Promare as an oppressive force butting up against their own, crackling and sparking on wavelengths beyond human perception in a bid to establish a power hierarchy. Most of the time these sorts of assessments were managed promptly upon exchanging greetings, on a subconscious level, but Galo’s Burnish companions likely never really interacted with other Burnish themselves, beyond one another at least, so this was a foreign experience to them.

He shifted his gaze from Aina and Remi to settle on Galo, still whining about his rent and the destitute state tonight’s loss would surely send him rolling into. If Galo were Burnish, he’d be just as coddled as those two—and Lio wondered if he, too, would feel so instinctively _uptight_ around Lio. Would that first encounter in the bathroom have gone entirely differently? Certainly his arm would be in better shape…

Lio’s mind tripped and stumbled: Burnish Galo… Now _there_ was a thought. A ridiculous one, to be sure, but it was there all the same. That energy, that _life_ , shaping and wielding a Promare of his own. He would have been welcome in Pyropolis—if Lio had been of a mind to invite him there. And he wasn’t.

He liked that _this_ was separate from the life he had amongst his people. He couldn’t let them merge—he couldn’t give Galo that power over him, that knowledge of who Lio was, and what was truly important to him. He couldn’t be that vulnerable; bits and pieces of himself, he kept hidden from the people he cared for, so none of them could every really threaten him in any meaningful way.

But if Galo had been Burnish…that might not have been possible. Galo would _know_ him, would feel what he was capable of and know what Pyropolis was. It was a terrifying thought—terrifying, and inexplicably arousing. If Lio didn’t dislike the idea of Burnish Galo, then his Promare fucking _loved_ it. 

He leaned down close to Galo’s ear, swallowing thickly. “…Can we leave?” They’d made use of Stub’s bathroom once before, and Lio wasn’t keen to do it again, not least because so many eyes were watching their every move. 

“Huh?” Galo lifted his head to frown sourly at him. “‘Course not. It’s barely been an hour. We’ve gotta make a comeback in Round 2 or else—”

Lio grabbed onto his wrist, squeezing meaningfully and forcing their gazes to meet. “Galo. Please.” He then relaxed his grip, letting his hand fall below the table to settle on Galo’s thigh.

Galo opened his mouth, as if to protest further—then seemed to think better of it, turning to shout to Varys, “Something came up, we’ve gotta run—double or nothing next month?” He didn’t wait to listen to the groans of protest, instead scrambling out the door with his head ducked and Lio in tow.

“This?” Galo panted when Lio slammed him up against the apartment door, the little frame on the wall holding a graduation certificate from “Basic Training” wobbling precariously with the force of the blow. “This is what we just blew off my friends for?”

“The Louts could wait,” Lio mumbled against his lips. “I couldn’t.”

Galo let him have his way for a beat, then braced his hands against Lio’s shoulders, easing him back with a flash of worry etched over his features. “…Seriously, what gives? I know it wasn’t exactly our best night, but we were hanging in there! Maybe I can borrow some flashcards from Lucia to—”

Lio tossed his head, storming away—he felt _ridiculous_. Every time before, there’d been a slow build-up, or else Lio had quenched the urges before they’d grown out of control. Tonight, though, he’d let his own fantasies undo him. He bit his thumb in frustration; he couldn’t blame his Promare for this one, not entirely. And even now, staring at Galo out of the corner of one eye, he couldn’t help imagining the expression he might wear, calling up a construct. How the light would hit him, bathed in flames of colors Lio didn’t know the names of.

He grabbed tight at the back of one of Galo’s dining chairs, white-knuckled, and hung his head in shame. “I let a thought get in my head. It wouldn’t leave, and I think perhaps my Promare latched on to it, rather inconveniently. I’m sorry; I’ve ruined your evening.”

Galo shrugged. “I’ve learned not to get too attached to any plans when you show up. It’s no big deal.” He took a tentative step forward, then another, and another, until he was close enough to tap Lio on the elbow. “You gonna tell me what the thought was?”

“I’d rather not.”

“‘Cause it’s embarrassing?”

It wasn’t embarrassing, per se, but like hell Lio was going to explain to Galo how unsettling it was when your own thoughts and feelings began to betray you. Lio cocked his head, fixing him with a dark, fiery glare. “You think I’m just being _shy_?”

Galo gave an amused huff. “‘Shy’ is _not_ how I’d describe you. Private, maybe.” He drew up close behind Lio, nuzzling his neck and breathing softly over the sensitive skin of his nape. “C’mon. Share with the class.”

He wasn’t going to leave it be, of this Lio was confident. He might have left off if he’d thought Lio had been uncomfortable around the Louts, or if he perhaps hadn’t been feeling well—but Lio had made the mistake of showing a weak point, and now that his soft underbelly was exposed, Galo was going in for the kill.

“…I wondered what you might be like, if you were Burnish.”

And then Galo, the _idiot_ , snorted against Lio’s neck and started cackling. “W—wait,” he begged, struggling for breath, “You gave me _all_ that shit about having a supposed ‘Burnish kink’, when it was you! It was you all along! _You’ve_ got the Burnish kink!” He stumbled into the bedroom, still guffawing and clutching at his stomach. Lio tamped down the urge to set his hair on fire.

“It’s not a _Burnish kink_ —” Lio huffed, even as a very small part of him needled _oh yes it is_ , but the denial only made Galo laugh all the harder.

Galo collapsed onto the mattress, wiping fiercely at his eyes. “You made us leave in the middle of the game! Cause the idea of me being Burnish turned you on so much! You jumped me as soon as we got through the door—” He gasped dramatically. “Lio. Does this mean you think…that I’m _hot_?” A new wave of giggles ensued, and this time Lio _did_ flick a Burnish spark his way, causing Galo to yelp and pat himself down frantically. He glared up at Lio, cheeks flushed and hair in disarray. “Touchy, touchy. What, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

“I believe I’ve demonstrated on _multiple_ occasions just how well I can ‘take it’.”

“Yeah…” Galo grinned loopily, staring off into space—before quickly recalling himself. “C’mon, so you’ve got a teensy little fantasy going on. What’s the harm? You wanna lean into it?”

Lio crossed his arms, dubious. “…‘Lean into it’?”

“Yeah. What’s a little more pretending gonna hurt, if we’re already doing some pretending as it is?” He shuffled forward on his knees, until he was close enough to reach out and hook a finger through Lio’s belt loops to draw him closer. Lio kept his arms crossed to show he was still irritated with Galo’s earlier display. “Burnish Galo, hm? So…how did this scenario play out?”

“It wasn’t a _scenario_. I was only wondering. It was a fleeting, fanciful thought, nothing more.”

“Clearly it wasn’t as ‘fleeting’ as you might’ve wanted it to be, if we had to beat a hasty retreat from Stub’s. I’m pretty sure Aina and Remi know what we’re up to, by the way.”

“Oh? You think they’re sharp enough to put two and two together when you ask them about Burnish sexual needs and then show up a few weeks later with one on your arm? Astonishing.”

“I love it when you’re so horny you slice me stem to stern with your tongue, y’know.” He gently but forcefully eased Lio’s arms back down by his sides so he could start stripping him, calm and unhurried. “So how did it go?” Lio went quiet, lips pursed tight, but this didn’t seem to deter Galo. “Was I part of your fancy Burnish city? Or did you think I’d turn out ‘domesticated’ like you badmouth Aina and Remi? Probably that, yeah? So you could slide in and show me all the stuff I’d been missing…” Lio’s button-up fluttered to the floor, and Galo turned his attention to Lio’s fly. “You think we’d have gone out riding together? I wouldn’t mind having a bike of my own like yours…” He peeled aside the front flaps of Lio’s pants, tugging them down. “It doesn’t hurt, right? When Burnish use their flames on each other?” He ran his hands up the backs of Lio’s now-bare thighs. “We could burn together, then…”

Lio bit back a throaty moan, teeth grit, and hissed, “Stop that.”

“Stop what? If I’m saying anything wrong, then by all means, educate me.”

“Riling me up right now would be _very_ unwise.” It was taking all he had to keep a leash on his Promare, and he honestly wasn’t sure what might happen if he let it slip free. He wanted to believe it wouldn’t hurt Galo, that it _knew him_ now and would at best nip his nose or toes before wrapping him in its warm, protective green glow. But he didn’t know, didn’t know how it would react driven as it was by Lio’s own arousal, so he jerked it back with all his mental might. 

“Spoiler alert, but I plan on doing a _lot_ more than riling you up…” Galo leaned forward to kiss his navel, leaving a tiny red mark behind and looking quite proud of himself for it.

“…Then let it be on your head,” Lio warned, laying a hand against Galo’s cheek. “I don’t have a Burnish kink.”

“…Maybe a ‘Burnish Galo’ kink, then? Just a tiny one? You can’t use the same excuse as me, y’know.”

“I know. And still _no_. I don’t wish you were Burnish.”

“Don’t have to _wish_ it. Fantasies aren’t _logical_. That’s why it’s a fantasy. Cause it just…pushes a button in the moment. You can’t shake it. Nothing wrong with it. Do I look like I’m complaining?”

No, no he did not. But that wasn’t the point. “I don’t wish you were Burnish,” he repeated, firmly, cradling Galo’s head in both hands now. “I wouldn’t be doing this with you, if you were.”

“No?” Galo said, in a tone that could not have been more patronizing if he’d tried. He curled his long fingers around Lio’s wrists, rubbing a thumb over Lio’s knuckles. “I bet you would. We’re soulmates, after all.”

And because he’d ruined Galo’s fun night out with his coworkers, Lio let him think that.

When Lio roused the next morning, it was to find the rays of morning sun grown distressingly short as noon rapidly approached. He was alone, which even in Galo’s apartment was not entirely unusual, but this was typically because Galo liked to start the day off with a shower. The eerie quiet that blanketed the apartment said its owner was nowhere about at all. Lio toed on his underpants and grabbed one of Galo’s oversized t-shirts, then shuffled blearily into the kitchen, where a hastily scrawled note sat beside a fresh plate on the dining table.

_/Got called in to help Lucia service one of the Rescue Gear units. Should be back around 4 at the latest. Coffee’s on, used those fancy beans you made me pay too much for last week. Think of something fun you can do to repay me when I get back./_

Lio flicked a glance over at the coffee maker sitting on the kitchen counter next to the sink, burbling away merrily despite Galo having no taste for the stuff, and a spark of warm affection kindled in his chest. Whatever shortcomings Galo might have, not being thoughtful enough wasn’t really one of them. The few brain cells he had seemed to be put entirely toward making the lives of those he cared about better, in whatever small ways he could manage. It wasn’t a poor use of scarce good sense; Gueira was much the same in that respect, and Lio had never heard Meis utter any complaints.

Lio tipped himself out a cup of the fresh brew and settled at the table with a couple slices of warm toast and a jam made from a fruit Lio had never heard of, scrolling through the headlines in the news app on Galo’s work tablet. Gubernatorial elections, a backroom gambling ring bust, visiting dignitaries from city-states across the seas—issues entirely foreign to Lio, for which he was grateful. Surely one day Pyropolis would have its share of similar problems, but for now, there was relative peace within its towering black-metal walls, and not for the first time, he was relieved he could leave this place whenever he wished and retreat to the comparative comfort of his private quarters. At least until his Promare forced him back into Galo’s bed. 

He was trying to decide whether he wanted another slice of toast or not when he caught the soft squeal of brakes and the crunch of gravel beneath boots beyond Galo’s front door. He checked the clock—no, only just barely noon; had Galo forgotten something, or perhaps been dismissed early? His treacherous heart gave a hopeful leap—there’d been a flyer tucked under the wiper of Galo’s deathtrap the evening before advertising some sort of open-air summer market, and Lio had wanted to take a peek at the produce. If Galo could be strong-armed into going _now_ , they wouldn’t have to worry about trying to get there before it closed for the evening.

He licked his fingers daintily (a nasty habit he’d picked up from Galo, instead of incinerating the crumbs like a proper Burnish) and jogged over to the door—

—when it was _slammed_ open, flying off its hinges and spraying shrapnel everywhere. Lio raised his arms instinctively to shield himself, but a loud _BLAM_ prefaced a shot of Freeze Fire being dealt directly to his face. It caught his wrists—and then another follow-up shot found its target, hitting him square on with force enough Lio blacked out.

* * *

When he came to, it was to find himself clapped tight in Freeze Ring cuffs and seated—still in his underpants—in a bare-metal chair in the middle of a room lined, he suspected, in flame-retardant panels. He tried to stay as calm as his body would allow, waiting for his wits to slowly but steadily come crawling back. Where had he been last? Galo’s place? Galo’s apartment…he’d been eating breakfast. Toast, jam, spicy black coffee.

Someone outside—bursting through the door. A gun in his face, then nothing.

His heart began to race as he took stock of his situation. Freeze Ring cuffs, metal furnishings, extinguisher cannons lining the walls… This was a room designed to hold—and, if necessary, subdue—Burnish. A cell? No—it didn’t _look_ it, not with the chair and table and what could only be a two-way mirror along one wall. 

This was an interrogation room.

How long had he been out? It couldn’t have been that long, he deduced, as he could still feel the coffee and breakfast in his belly. An hour, perhaps more if he’d been drugged after taking the Freeze Fire shot. Would Galo be off by now? Would he be looking—

The single door along the far wall across from Lio hissed open, and Lio seized, holding very, _very_ still as he remained conscious of the extinguisher cannons fixed on his position. No sense in swallowing a mouthful of foam without having earned it, after all. He would at least stare his captor in the face before breaking free and burning this place, wherever it was, down to its foundations.

But through the door marched not any burly soldier-sort but instead an old man, tottering in his frailty and hunched nearly in half as he leaned the bulk of his featherweight on a gnarled wooden cane. On his heels was a young woman in glasses who looked strikingly familiar, though Lio couldn’t place her at first glance. Both were dressed in long white coats, and the woman clutched a clipboard in one arm. Scientists. 

Lio didn’t know if this was a step up or down from being kidnapped by some imaginary nefarious military organization, but he hadn’t been fond of doctors as a child, and he certainly wasn’t any more fond of them now. 

The old man finally made it over to the table, easing into the chair across from Lio and handing off his cane to the woman. She pushed the clipboard toward him, but he waved her off, instead crossing his hands before himself and peering out at Lio from under overgrown bushy white brows. His equally bushy white beard disguised his facial expressions entirely, and Lio remained on a knife’s edge, waiting for the shoe to drop.

“Greetings, Lio Fotia,” the old man rasped. “My name is Deus Prometh, and we’ve been searching for you for quite some time.”


	6. Chapter 6

Lio felt his blood run cold, a curious sensation for a Burnish but there all the same. He forced his breathing to remain calm, though, and kept his features even—Prometh seemed perfectly inclined to answer all of his unspoken questions, so he decided to let the old bastard talk himself hoarse while Lio quietly tested the Freeze Ring cuffs under the table. 

“My associate here is Heris Ardebit.” The woman gave a short nod, and Lio couldn’t help the twitch his brow gave. Ardebit—that would explain her familiarity. Lio had lost a trivia round badly only the night before to this woman’s…sister? Cousin? Some relative or other, evidently. Did Aina know she was related to someone who moonlighted kidnapping unsuspecting Burnish without cause? 

_Fuck_. Had Aina been in on this? He took back everything he’d ever said about Promepolitan Burnish. They could clearly be as underhanded and self-serving as their cousins in the Waste who’d always done what they had to in order to survive.

“I must start off by apologizing for what can only be called kidnapping—and the rough treatment you received in the doing. Colonel Vulcan can be…well, less than delicate when given a task, but he does get results. And unfortunately, we could take no chances, as I assure you I’m _not_ being dramatic when I tell you that the very fate of the planet depended on our finding and securing you.”

“Securing me,” Lio said, flat. 

Prometh gave a half-nod. “…Well, my boy, we’d be more than happy to relieve you of those cuffs if we could have your word you wouldn’t reduce the both of us to ash given half a chance.” Lio said nothing—he had some pride, after all, so he wasn’t going to lie. “Right. Then we’ll say our piece first, and once we’ve finished our chat, you’ll be on your way. Until then, I’m afraid we’re going to ask you to be our guest in these less-than-comfortable quarters.” He held a hand out, and Ardebit placed the clipboard in it. “As I said, we’ve been looking for you for quite some time. Well, not looking for _you_ , but looking for…whoever you were.”

Lio frowned, not following the cryptic language—but he didn’t like the idea of anyone looking for him _period_. People coming after Lio meant people coming after Pyropolis. Lio could take care of himself, but like hell he was going to put his people in danger to save his own skin.

Prometh slid the clipboard over to Lio—the topsheet showed a map, with several big black Xs scattered across what seemed to be an area of several hundred square miles including Promepolis, Pyropolis, and the vast empty Waste. “Is this supposed to mean something to me?” he asked, tone flippant. 

“Oh yes, I think it should. These—” Prometh tapped one liver-spotted finger on one of the Xs. “—Are you.” 

“…They look like Xs.”

Prometh actually laughed, mustache fluttering, and it didn’t sound as cruel as Lio might have expected. “Yes, well. We’ve been tracking your heat signature for going on two years now. Until fairly recently, those signatures were detected sporadically across the Waste—but then, last fall, we lost you entirely. We suspected you’d joined up with the Burnish colony that sprouted up at the base of Mount Fennel—” Lio forced himself not to flinch— _fuck fuck fuck_. He needed _out_ of these cuffs— “But that was as good as having lost you. Those feral Burnish don’t take kindly to visitors—they melted the tires off of poor Ardebit’s transport before she got within sight of the perimeter wall.”

Ardebit ducked her head, a light flush painting her cheeks, and Lio narrowed his gaze in suspicion. These two wanted Lio in their clutches so badly they’d kidnapped him in broad daylight—but they couldn’t so much as breach Pyropolis’s walls to get at him _there_? Granted, Lio _was_ proud of the security guarding their city—but if a serious assault had come at them, Lio would have heard about it. Would have been on the front lines, even. He didn’t think he’d even _heard_ about a transport trying to hail their front gates.

“We’d just about given up hope, when as luck would have it, you popped up again! And right in our own backyard, too! Ardebit even did a funny little dance—Ardebit, show him the dance.”

“ _Professor_ …” Ardebit muttered. “Now is hardly the time…”

“Yes, yes, all right…” Prometh sighed. “Well, we couldn’t risk losing you again. This—” He gestured to Lio’s state, “—was an act of desperation, and I’m sure you won’t believe me when I say this, but it’s true: we mean you _no_ harm. We only wish to speak with you.”

The Freeze Ring cuffs gave a soft hiss of protest as Lio continued to work at them, and he shifted the chair forward to disguise the sound. “Fine. I’m listening.”

Prometh seemed satisfied, flipping the topsheet of the clipboard over to the next page, which displayed a chart of numbers and data that were meaningless to Lio. “I have been studying Burnish and their Promare for going on thirty years now. Tracking their presence in our planet’s core, the links they share with some humans but not others—and the consequences of those links.” Lio didn’t like the way Prometh’s tone went grave when he said _consequences_. “Lio Fotia, you are—as far as our sensors have been able to calculate—synchronized with the most powerful Promare to travel through the rift joining ours and the Promare universe.”

Lio blinked, quite unsure what they were getting at, but Prometh seemed to need no input, continuing on with a rolling, rambling rhythm that spoke of a man accustomed to being allowed to speak his piece without being interrupted.

“We at Prometh Labs have made every effort to educate the public on the Promare we share a home with now—and the Burnish who consequently live among us. Through knowledge and understanding, we hope to prevent fear and mistrust from taking root and bringing about a cataclysm the likes of the Great World Blaze once again. Human civilization would not, I fear, survive another such trial, so scientists such as myself and Ardebit here busy ourselves with research and studies, all in the hopes of preparing humans of all sorts, Burnish and otherwise, for what may lie ahead.”

He flipped another page on the clipboard, this time to show an illustration of a stylized circle and stick figure, with a line connecting them, alongside several more charts and graphs whose purpose Lio could only guess at. “As I’m sure you’re aware, the Promare are alien lifeforms of pure energy that inhabit a universe that lies parallel to our own—another dimension, you understand. Thirty years ago, when a temporospatial rift formed in the thin fabric of reality separating our universes, a number of these creatures were drawn through from their own universe and deposited in the earth’s core. Trapped there and unable to return under their own power, they’ve bonded with select humans with whom they share energetic wavelengths—those who we now call ‘Burnish’. Now, you Burnish of course aren’t _inherently_ dangerous or evil; you’re humans with human foibles, like anyone. The same holds true for the Promare—they did not choose to colonize our core, they’re simply stranded, unsure of how to slip back through the rift and return to their own world.”

Under less fraught circumstances, Lio might have been nodding off right about now. This was the same rhetoric repeated _ad nauseum_ to school children, and while it was an admirable message, it was a _boring_ one Lio had heard many times before.

“However, their very presence in our universe—in our planet’s core to be precise—and their link to their Burnish hosts is placing our planet in grave danger.” Prometh passed the clipboard back to Ardebit. “In their native dimension, where they live as an aggregate of billions forming a living star, the Promare can freely combust, producing energy in a neverending cycle of fission and fusion through which they communicate and procreate. As the Promare trapped in our dimension attempt to do as their primal drives direct, however, their efforts at achieving complete combustion are slowly but steadily destabilizing the core—and the rest planet by proxy. This would be recipe for disaster enough, but these creatures’ links to their Burnish companions has exposed them to every stress and strain we humans have learned to bear over eons of evolution but which the Promare, with their primitive nervous systems, are most unfortunately _not_ equipped to handle. Bitter emotions, injury, disease—everything the Burnish suffer, the Promare suffer _ten_ -fold.”

Lio felt guilt churning in his belly: for _months_ he’d denied his Promare the connection it so craved. He hadn’t thought his stubborn streak would seriously _harm_ the creature—it was only discomfort. Discomfort on _both_ their parts, and if Lio could bear it, then so could his horny Promare. But if what Prometh was saying was true…

Granted, that was a big _if_.

“This rift in our core is causing damage that, if left unchecked, could lead to an unmitigated disaster, rendering the planet inviable. The effects of the instability will most likely begin to be seen inside of a year: dormant volcanoes acting up, new ones being churned up from the sea bed, fault lines birthing chains of earthquakes, toxic fumes belched into the atmosphere. It will not be quick, no, but it will be inexorable, and inside of a decade…this planet will be on its last legs, as far as all but the hardiest of biological life is concerned.”

Lio was still clinging to that _big if_ , and he forced his tone to remain even. He didn’t trust these people as far as he could throw them, and he wasn’t about to be frightened into submission either. He would _know_ if he’d harmed his Promare, surely he would. He would _feel it_.

“Well. That sounds less than ideal. But I fail to see what this has to do with me. Shouldn’t this be _your_ field—or are the fancy lab coats and buckets of data just for show?”

Prometh huffed. “They’re for far more than show, young man. I spent more time on my doctoral dissertation alone than you’ve been _alive_.” His tone was pointed, but Lio thought he might be smirking behind the mustache. “And the obvious solution is to send the Promare back from whence they came and close the rift behind them. No more Promare, no more unstable core.”

_And no more Burnish_ , Lio finished silently, not quite sure why the thought sat so uncomfortably with him. It wasn’t as if Prometh was speaking of _exterminating_ Burnish—only freeing them, along with their Promare. But Lio had heard this sort of rhetoric before: _don’t you wish you were normal? Don’t you wish you could be rid of your Promare?_ And while a part of him _did_ share a painful longing for a childhood he recalled much more rosily than it probably had been, a far more prominent part—the part that had founded Pyropolis—maintained that this was who he was, who he’d _always_ been meant to be, and the Promare had only brought it out of him. The parts of his existence that left him feeling trapped, powerless—these were barriers to overcome. Barriers he _was_ overcoming. 

Stripping away their Promare would leave the Burnish less than what they’d made themselves into. They weren’t broken, they didn’t need fixing.

Except, it was starting to sound like maybe _something_ was broken, and it _did_ need fixing.

“Sounds simple enough,” Lio said, and the flippant tone triggered the reaction he’d been looking for.

“I’m sure it does, when I put it like that. But closing a rift in the fabric of space-time is rather more complicated that slapping a bandage over the hole. For one, the task can’t be completed from a laboratory, or even from the surface of the planet—it will require a physical presence in the core.”

Lio blinked. “…Physical presence? Wh—you want someone to _go to the core_? The core of the _earth_?”

Prometh nodded. “You begin to see the difficulty of the matter.”

Lio looked to Ardebit, who practically cowered behind Prometh and seemed content to let him lead the farce of a conversation. “Is he serious?”

She flinched at being addressed—then straightened, chin jutting. “Of course. We’ve been studying this matter for _years_ , and while I wouldn’t blame you for not believing us outright, trust that we wouldn’t have taken such…such _drastic_ steps to contact you if it weren’t important.”

“Right. The small matter of my _abduction_. Why _am_ I here? Clearly you’ve got your work cut out for you, and I wouldn’t want to keep you from a brainstorming session.”

“You’re here, Mr. Fotia, as a result of the ‘brainstorming sessions’ we’ve already _had_ ,” Ardebit huffed. 

“I— _what_?”

“The rift is in the earth’s core,” Prometh reminded, settling a hand on Ardebit’s arm in gentle warning. Her cheeks had gone pink, and Lio thought she might be on the verge of losing her temper. “No human could withstand the incredible heat or pressure of such an environment—only a Burnish.”

Lio boggled. “You want me to just…just _go_? To the _fucking core of the planet_?” He could hear his tone gone a bit shrill, and the Freeze Ring cuffs gave a warning puff as his Promare began to champ at its bit, channeling Lio’s distress at being confined and the absurd request Prometh was making.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, boy. We hardly expect you to just _hitchhike_ there. We’d provide you transportation—in a manner of speaking to be discussed at a later point, once you’ve agreed—” _Agreed_. Hah. Fat chance of that happening. “Besides, even if you could travel there under your own power—a trip that would take weeks at best—how could you expect to _breathe_ , six thousand kilometers underground?” Prometh crossed his arms, wrinkling his nose so that his mustache fluttered. “As Ardebit said: we’re taking this quite seriously. We’d appreciate it if _you_ would as well.”

Lio studied them, carefully. “…Why should I believe you?”

“Heh?” Prometh squawked, then bristled. “Why you—why _shouldn’t_ you believe me? Don’t you know who I am?”

“No. I know you kidnapped me, but that’s about the extent of things.”

“I’m _Deus Prometh_. I _named_ the fucking thing you’re symbiosed with! Ardebit, show him my Promepedia page!” He snapped his fingers, and Ardebit scrambled to withdraw a handheld tablet from the pocket of her lab coat, fingers flying over the screen. “Didn’t you learn about me in class? They start teaching Xenobiology in primary school these days.”

Lio shrugged. “Maybe you were in a footnote. I don’t recall you being on the final exam, at any rate.”

Prometh went red in the face, and Lio thought he might just combust then and there, Burnish or no. But he quickly recovered himself, took a bracing breath, and fixed Lio with a grave expression. Ardebit pressed the tablet towards him, presumably tuned to his Promepedia page, but Prometh waved her off.

“We research more than just the Promare in Prometh Labs, Lio Fotia. We do our homework on their Burnish hosts as well. So you’re not fooling me into thinking you’re incapable of understanding the gravity of this situation. You come from good stock, you’re _smart_ , and I know that fancy city of yours doesn’t govern itself. We’ve spooked you, got you on your guard, and for that I will apologize as many times as it takes, but this is _important_. We’ve worked our asses off for the past five-plus years devising a solution—a solution hinging on _you_ —to counter our planet’s impending doom. At least humor us before you piss on our honest efforts.”

“Language, Professor…” Ardebit sighed, pocketing the tablet again.

“Bah,” was all Prometh had to say to that.

What were the chances, Lio wondered, that this actually _was_ real? That the Promare in the core were doing grievous harm to the planet, and that Lio—not an actual defense force, not a team of scientists, but a Burnish just barely past the age of majority—was the Earth’s lone hope for survival? 

Slim to none.

But Lio needed more time to work on the Freeze Ring cuffs, so he did as he’d been asked and humored them. “…Fine. Supposing you can actually get me to the core. What exactly am I meant to _do_ there? Knock on the rift and see if the Promare on the other side won’t please invite their friends back home?”

Prometh declined to rise to the bait this time. “This is precisely why we’ve been searching for _you_ and not settling for any of your companions residing within our own borders. As I mentioned before, you possess a link to the most powerful Promare we’ve charted since readings first began to be taken thirty years ago. You give off phenomenally pure energy waves that I’m sure you’ve seen other Burnish sit up and take notice of.” …Well all right then. Maybe this old coot did know what he was talking about. “Once in close enough proximity to the core—to the rift—simply synchronizing with your Promare should be enough. Such a powerful Promare building up energy near the rift will trigger a reaction from the Promare on the _other_ side of the rift, in the Promare homeworld, forming a positive feedback loop that should create a sort of whirlpool effect, if you will. The Promare on our side of the rift will be drawn _back_ through, their tethers to the Burnish severed, and the energy from their passage closing the rift, like a cosmic zipper.”

“It’s worked in simulations,” Ardebit added encouragingly. “Though we obviously haven’t had the chance to test it in the field quite yet. We’re optimistic, though.”

“I can’t see you’ve got any choice _but_ to be optimistic,” Lio muttered under his breath, but Prometh caught it and chuckled.

“You do make a point. But with less than a year until the adverse effects of the Promare start manifesting, we don’t have much time to dwell on how this can all go _wrong_. We’ve got to focus on doing whatever we can to make sure it goes _right_.” He gave a guilty little shrug. “Up to and including kidnapping the young man whose assistance we’re most desperate for.”

“If we can’t secure your help and this mission fails,” Ardebit said, clutching the clipboard to her chest, “We’ll have to start an earnest search for viable alternative approaches to ensure the survival of our species…”

Lio didn’t like the sound of ‘viable alternatives’ and ‘ensure the survival’, and he frowned. “…What’s that supposed to mean? What sort of ‘alternatives’?”

Ardebit cut Prometh a worried look, but he only gave her a grave nod, and she swallowed. “…Emigration.”

“Emigration?” Lio repeated, frown deepening even further. “You mean— _leave_ the planet?”

“Only as a very last resort,” Prometh said, “and only once it’s become uninhabitable. Construction has been underway for several years now on an ark of sorts—but it can only hold at most ten thousand, and even at full power, the engines couldn’t get us out of the solar system in under twenty years. It would be but a life raft, adrift on a vast ocean, with no hope of rescue. Delayed doom, as it were.” He cut Lio a challenging look. “We can give you a tour, if you like. See humanity’s coffin up close.”

Lio’s heart gave a palpable thud. Fuck— _fuck_. These people might _not_ be messing with him. Which meant his life was about to get _ever_ so much more difficult. He’d thought his horny Promare had been insufferable enough—and now _this_? Suddenly, fucking Galo Thymos didn’t seem like such a chore.

He turned his thoughts inward, seeking out the thin thread of energy keeping him leashed to his Promare, and tested it. _Are you in terrible pain? Are you aching to go home?_ Of course, his Promare didn’t respond—it never did. Not in anything resembling speech, at least. All he ever received were base emotions, urges, primal drives that he could not ignore, no matter how hard he fought. 

Granted, fighting might well have been what brought him here in the first place. Though he supposed one Burnish’s willful human nature being at odds with his Promare wasn’t going to wind up having been responsible for the destruction of the very planet. Even if that Promare was, by Prometh’s calculations, the most powerful to slip through the rift.

Which got Lio to wondering. “Wonderful, no pressure on my part, whatsoever.” He slumped forward, fighting the urge to bang his head on the table. Perhaps once he came to, he’d be back in his overly-pillowed bedroom in Pyropolis and all this ‘colony cock’ business would have turned out to have been some fantastic nightmare. “Explain again why _I’ve_ got to be the one to do this? Even accepting your premise my Promare’s as big and bad as you say it is, there are plenty of Burnish more than capable of handling themselves against me. Some in my own commune, even. Surely any of them could do the job _just_ as well—you’ve got a Burnish sister, do you not?”

He directed the question at Ardebit, who gave a startled jolt. “Wh—how do you know Aina?” Hm. Perhaps Aina hadn’t turned him in after all, then. She shook her head sharply. “No—no, I’ve been working with Aina since she first awoke, tracking her Burnish signals every step of the way. Her Promare’s only a Class C—it’s fused perhaps two or three times. Nowhere near as many times as your Class A Promare.”

“Class—what?”

Prometh threw his hands into the air. “You—didn’t you pay attention at _all_ in Xenobiology? Though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to hear this from someone who didn’t even _know who I was_.”

Ardebit patted him gamely on the shoulder, then turned back to Lio. “Through our studies, we’ve categorized Promare into five classes based on stages in their development. E for new buds with no or few connections, D for immature forms with ten or more connections and a stable electromagnetic field but no fusion history, C for pubescent forms that have fused with fewer than five mates, B for mature aggregates of anywhere from five to one hundred fused Promare functioning as a single core, and A.” She gestured to Lio. “For alpha cores. Amalgamations of _hundreds_ of Promare that have fused together over lifetimes to create a single being of tremendous power. Yours is the only one we’ve ever encountered this side of the rift, though there may be countless more in their native universe.”

Lio swallowed, throat bobbing. He tried very hard not to think of Aina and Remi keeping their distance from him, complaining he ‘prickled’ them. Of Gueira and Meis, pledging their undying fealty to him barely five minutes after having met him. Of Pyropolis and its sturdy walls of solid black flame and his people sheltering within, looking to him and just _accepting_ him.

“We’ve only got one shot at this,” Prometh said, all bluster gone from his voice, and he locked eyes with Lio. Could he tell Lio was having a minor mental breakdown just now? It certainly felt like he could, and it was _not_ helping. “Just one Deus X Machina and enough time to prepare pilots. We need to go with our very best bet—and that’s _you_.”

Lio perked up—that was new. “What’s the ‘Deus X Ma—’”

Beyond the sealed door came the unmistakable sounds of a scuffle and strident but muffled arguments being traded, interrupting their discussion. Prometh and Ardebit both turned to regard the door with a frown—and mere moments later, whoever had been in charge of ensuring they had their privacy while interrogating Lio had evidently been subdued, as in barged Galo like some gallant knight errant.

“Where the hell is— _Lio!_ ” He charged over to the table, shoving Ardebit aside in his haste, and she nearly took a tumble to the floor. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you?” He caught sight of the Freeze Ring cuffs and colored with rage. “What the hell are _those_ for?!” He didn’t bother waiting for Lio to respond, instead rounding on Prometh and Ardebit, who was struggling to find her feet again. “What the fuck’s going on? Get him out of those things, _right now_! If there’s charges being levied against him, I wanna know about ‘em! And—and aren’t there supposed to be _lawyers_ or something in here? I’ve memorized every inch of the law when it comes to Burnish, and I know they’re afforded the _same basic rights_ as normal humans, so—”

“Ah. Mr. Thymos,” Prometh smiled, cutting Galo’s chest-thumping short. “Kind of you to drop by. I believe you already know Ardebit?”

“Arde—?” Galo frowned, only just realizing who he’d barreled through. “Oh—shit. You’re Aina’s sis…” He seemed thrown by the sudden appearance of someone he recognized standing next to Lio, still in his cuffs, and shook his head. “I—what’s going on? What are you doing to him?”

“We’re merely having a chat, Mr. Thymos. Mr. Fotia hasn’t been harmed—not irreparably at least—and we’ve already apologized to him for the rather unorthodox approach we felt we had to take in order to get his attention.”

Galo didn’t seem convinced, spitting at Ardebit, “Does Aina know about this? That you’re out here kidnapping innocent Burnish?” He narrowed his gaze in dark suspicion. “Did you _use her_ to get to him—?!”

Lio was impressed with Galo’s logic and not a tiny bit delighted with the horrified gasp Ardebit released. “Of _course_ I didn’t use her! I would never! But we worried if we didn’t act promptly once we detected his signal, we’d lose him again!”

“Easy now, Ardebit,” Prometh said, struggling to his feet and accepting his cane from her once more. “Mr. Thymos makes a point—we’ve unlawfully detained Mr. Fotia, and now that we’ve said our piece, we’ve no cause to keep him here any longer.” He nodded in Lio’s direction. “Especially as I’m sure Mr. Fotia has nearly managed to work himself free of the Freeze Ring cuffs by now and will undoubtedly wish to be on his way.”

Damn. Lio supposed he hadn’t been quite as stealthy in his efforts as he’d imagined. Seeing no reason to be subtle about it any longer, Lio blasted through the Ring with a punching flare, sending sizzling shrapnel flying—which the extinguishers lining the walls promptly targeted and froze solid. Lio rubbed his wrists with a frown; that _definitely_ would not have been fun to experience, so he was relieved he’d kept his temper in check.

He turned to Prometh, no longer struck by the urge to reduce the doctor and his assistant to ashes but in no mood to stick around any longer. “I take it I’m free to leave, then?”

Prometh and Ardebit shared an uncomfortable glance. “You are…” Prometh allowed. “But could we perhaps get an answer regarding our discussion? I don’t mean to sound dramatic—well, no, I take that back. This merits all manner of dramatics, so I’ll say it straight: You’re our only hope, Lio Fotia.”

Galo drew up alongside Lio, arms crossed over his chest. “Huh? Only hope for what? What the hell’s going on here?”

“It’s not my decision to make,” Lio said, ignoring Galo for the moment. He could be indelicate at the best of times, and Lio was already nursing a headache he wasn’t sure his Promare could relieve him of. “I’ll take the matter to my people—they ought to have a voice in what’s to happen to them. If they’re going to lose the very thing they’ve built their identity around, that they’ve been persecuted for and learned to accept, or even love, then it should be their choice to do so.”

Prometh rubbed at his ear. “Wh—did I hear you right? Have Ardebit and I been speaking _Greek_ for the past hour? Were you not listening to our presentation? If you don’t do this, your ‘people’ are probably going to _die_. We _all_ will, in fact!”

“We’ll— _what_?!” Galo shrieked.

“Perhaps,” Lio allowed with a shrug. “But they’ll be the ones to decide if it’s truly worth it to them for me to help those who turned their backs on us for the past thirty years. I’m probably the one who sounds dramatic now, but: I expect a fair few of them would rather watch the world burn.”

And with that, he marched out the door, Galo hesitating only a moment before chasing after.


	7. Chapter 7

Lio didn’t allow himself to breathe easy until he’d stepped through the glass doors fronting the Prometh Labs lobby and could be sure there were no forces being marshaled to drag him back into the bowels of the building so his cooperation could be forced from him. The cool, logical centers of his mind noted the easy, casual way with which Prometh and Ardebit had treated him, reassuring him that their concerns were genuine and their efforts founded in an honest desire to do good. But the wild, feral parts that tended to take hold at moments like this, when his freedom was on the line, hissed that he would not be safe, in any respect, until he was ensconced behind the walls of Pyropolis once more, his generals at his side and his people ready to defend Lio _and_ themselves with every spark within them.

“Hey—are you gonna talk to me? Lio?” Galo reached out, grabbing at Lio’s shoulder, but he rolled him off with a rude shrug. “What the hell’s going on?”

Lio remained tight-lipped, though, stepping up his pace and readying to summon Detroit the moment he passed the little guard shack at the entrance to the main lot. He didn’t feel like explaining—he didn’t have time, for one, and it was none of Galo’s concern for another. This was Lio’s problem—his to solve, his to manage. His people would give their input, and he would execute whatever decision they came to, and damn the consequences. You didn’t get to shit on an entire subset of the population and then call upon them for aid in your darkest hour and just _expect_ it to be given. Some things were more important than simple survival, that was all there was to it.

“ _Hey_.”

Lio drew up short, nearly slamming into Galo’s barrel chest after he placed himself in Lio’s way, demanding his attention. Lio glared up at him, frown pinched. “ _What_?” The guard shack was but a stone’s throw away, and the attendant was giving them a funny look—though that might have been because Lio was barefoot wearing nothing but a too-large t-shirt and boxer-briefs.

“Don’t _what_ me. I managed to make it back home for lunch, hoping maybe I could eat with you, only to find my door demolished, my place an absolute wreck, and you just _gone_. I didn’t know what’d happened to you, or if you were okay or not, and I was really fuckin’ worried, all right? So don’t treat me like I’m being an annoying shit.”

He _was_ being annoying—a little, at least. But Lio supposed he wasn’t being _unreasonably_ annoying. He took a long breath, brushing his hair from his eyes. “…I’m sorry. For being short.”

Galo shrugged. “I won’t say I’m not used to it.” And casual though his tone was, it still stung a bit. Galo was easy-going to a fault—but when he got serious, he got _serious_ , and Lio felt his stomach churn with guilt. Lio had his fair share of problems to deal with just now—but Galo, it seemed, had really, truly been frightened. It was likely not something he was accustomed to dealing with, while for Lio it was old hat and something he’d therefore taken for granted.

He let the frown ease, shoulders sagging. “…I’m sorry,” he said again, trying to sound like he did mean it. “But I really need to get back to Pyropolis. I have…some things that need dealing with. As promptly as possible.”

Galo crossed his arms over his chest and sighed, nodding. “…All right.” Lio prepared to side-step Galo, an understanding reached, when Galo laid a firm hand on his shoulder. “…But I’m not leaving you until I get answers.”

Fuck. He probably should have seen that one coming. Every part of Lio balked at the idea of bringing Galo inside the walls of Pyropolis—what they had now was _good_ and _stable_ , and sharing this other side of himself with Galo was…not something he was prepared to do. But he did owe Galo at least this much, for the worry if nothing else, so he gave a beleaguered sigh and said, “…Fine. But you’ll do as I say, all right? You’ll be my guest—so act as such.”

Galo relaxed a tick, then gave a smart nod, which ought to have settled Lio’s nerves but really didn’t. This was going to be a distraction Lio could not afford right now—but Galo could be nearly as stubborn as Lio’s own Promare, and at equally inconvenient times. If Lio wanted to keep this well-meaning idiot around for his services, he would have to bend.

Together, they marched past the guardhouse, where Galo gave a mock salute to the attendant, and once safely off Prometh Labs property, Lio ordered Galo back, took a breath, and conjured Detroit. It was a quick and dirty construct this time—no energy could be spared bringing his bike forth in a real artistic display, as pride often had him do. Still, Galo gave a low whistle of appreciation, elbowing Lio gently. 

“That never fails to impress.”

“I’d instruct my dick to stand down, if I were you,” Lio warned, conjuring a blackout helmet that, with any luck, would ruin the cock’s comb Galo called his hair. “We’ve a long ride ahead of us, and I won’t be stopping.”

“Now _that_ sounds like a challenge…”

Lio shoved the helmet into Galo’s vulnerable belly, drawing an _oof_ from him. “It wasn’t. If you find it difficult to keep your hands to yourself, I’m happy to drop you off at your apartment on my way out of the city to let you get started sorting through the mess my abrupt abduction left behind.”

“Geez, touchy…” Galo mumbled, frowning down at the helmet. “Hey, why am I the only one wearing one of these? Where’s yours? Come to think of it, you _never_ wear a helmet. You’re gonna wind up with your brains splattered across the asphalt one of these days, at this rate.”

“First,” Lio said, swinging one leg over the saddle,” Detroit would never throw me.”

“ _Throw_ you? It’s not a horse…”

“And two—” He revved Detroit’s nonexistent engine, enjoying the loud thrum and rumbling vibrations of power it gave off, even if it was quite literally a product of his imagination. “—It’s going to take rather a lot more than a bump on the crown and a skinned knee to fell any Burnish. We’re hardier than we might seem, I’ll thank you to remember.”

“Just ‘cause Sparky can fix you up doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt like shit, I’m pretty sure,” Galo said, drawing on the helmet. And he had a point. Sensing that Galo was going to find a way to complain about Lio’s apparent lack of a self-preservation instinct all the way to Mount Fennel, Lio reluctantly conjured another helmet, plopped it on, and gave Galo a look that said _Satisfied?_ before flipping the visor down.

Galo looped both arms around his midsection, leaned his chest against Lio’s back, and squeezed tight—and praying Galo couldn’t feel the traitorous double-thump his heart gave in response, Lio opened Detroit’s throttle, and they left Prometh Labs in the dust.

* * *

Lio reluctantly complied with the Promepolitan traffic laws as long as he could stand, but once beyond the Promepolis borders, he let Detroit run wild through the Waste, heading for Pyropolis at speed. Time had always seemed to pass with a strange liquidity atop Detroit, such that he could never tell if he was very far or very near his destination, and this had never been more palpable than now, with Galo clutching him tight from behind. How was it, after everything they’d done, and all the different ways they’d done it, that something so simple as this could have Lio’s head spinning? 

Perhaps it was the adrenaline from his kidnapping still coursing through his veins, powering that fight or flight reaction in combination with whatever it was the Promare dumped into his system that had him aching for Galo’s touch in any way he could have it. Either way, he could live without it, thank you very much.

In due course, though, they approached the base of Mount Fennel, and Pyropolis at last loomed before them, its high walls of solid black Burnish flame guarding his people well from any who might dare trespass. Well, the walls—and the sentinels that stood atop them, well-trained in long-range Burnish weaponry that could vaporize in an instant most anyone approaching the city with ill intent.

Lio hailed the gates with a Burnish arrow that popped nova-bright overhead, lighting up the Waste for miles as the sun began to fail. In response, the gates creaked inward to invite him through, and Lio placed a hand on Galo’s thigh in silent instruction to make no false moves, at least until Lio had vouched for him.

He could feel a dozen or more pairs of eyes following him as Detroit rolled through the gates, and he was confident that more than a few of them were attached to bodies that, shortly, would race off to find Gueira or Meis or both to alert them to Lio’s arrival—and his tagalong. 

With no riding of constructs allowed inside the walls outside of pre-approved tracks that were mostly used by children, Lio dismounted and instructed Galo to quickly do the same, disincorporating the helmets and Detroit in one swoop. 

“Stick close,” Lio said, keeping his voice low and his eyes on the crowd they were drawing. “We aren’t technically allowed to invite outsiders, and I’m sure to get an earful later about breaking protocol. Don’t give them an excuse to take matters into their own hands. I assure you their Promare aren’t nearly as fond of you as mine is and will give you a lot more than little ‘lovebites’.”

Galo nodded, wisely holding back any quips he might have been longing to drop, and Lio gave the sentinels a curt nod before marching into Pyropolis proper with Galo in tow. 

While Galo did at least listen and stuck so close to Lio he stepped on his bare heels three separate times, they still managed to attract rather a lot of attention, word of their arrival having spread through the community like wildfire. It was warmly amusing, on some level, watching Galo openly gape at the city that was unfolding before them. It was certainly nothing to look at—not yet at least—and Promepolis dwarfed it by several magnitudes, yet Galo’s head whipped back and forth, side to side and all around as he took in the sights. Lio had to tamp down a spark of jealousy that kindled in his chest when he caught Galo staring a touch too long at a young woman hanging laundry from a clothesline to dry outside her quarters, embers leaping from her fingers and delicately fizzling against the damp material.

He physically turned away from the sight—and caught sight of a Burnish clad in the leather uniform that marked them a member of one of the recon squads. He hailed the young woman—Ceresa, he thought her name might have been—and instructed her to find Gueira and Meis and have them meet him at his quarters. She ignored his absurd state of undress and nodded smartly, sparing only a quick furtive glance in Galo’s direction before darting off. Even without Ceresa’s message, his generals would probably get word of their curious visitor by way of the grapevine snaking around the city, but at least they couldn’t rag on him for not summoning them properly this time. 

Not that that would keep them from finding _other_ things to rag on him about instead.

The Burnish flame railing that Meis had constructed on his stoop in a fit of worry was finally gone, though Lio suspected one of a similar make had found its way to Meis’s own stoop. Lio scaled the steps two at a time, eager to secret Galo away from the prying eyes of the other Pyropolitans. 

“Holy crap…” Galo breathed when he stepped into the entry foyer, eyes fixed overhead at the extravagant chandelier Lio had constructed early on in an effort to distract himself from the mounting urges his Promare had been driving him to satisfy. He couldn’t recall how he’d managed to craft the unusual crystalline prisms that glittered like white diamonds hanging below black-glass casings where flickered brilliant sparks of his own Promare, and he’d not been able to recreate them since. Galo reluctantly turned his gaze to take in the rest of the foyer, unfinished though it was, and he nearly twisted himself into knots in the effort. “This place…is _amazing_.”

Lio tried to keep his head from swelling too large to fit through the doorway. “Did you imagine I lived in a hovel?”

“No—or, I dunno? I don’t think I ever imagined anything really. But seriously, this is _insane_. It’s like…three times bigger than my place!” Lio wondered if Galo realized there was more to the residence than just the foyer, or if he was really that bad at estimating the size of a given space. There was no discounting it was a bit of both. 

Lio moved into the kitchen—coffee was just as effective for settling the nerves as for perking one up, and he was in _sore_ need of some settling right about now—and Galo trailed after, still admiring the quarters. 

“You built _all_ of this?”

“Not all of it,” Lio felt compelled to admit. Galo’s unabashed gawking was, in its own way, thrilling—but Lio couldn’t in good conscious let himself or his people take full credit for Pyropolis. “The settlement is built around the skeleton of what had, at one time, been meant to be a residential community. The foundations were there—quite literally, in the case of the quarters we share—so we simply adopted the space as a blueprint, building out the half-finished structures to create constructs we could live in. Now we have space and security to live our lives by our own rules.”

“Yeah, you’ve _definitely_ got the security thing down…” Galo leaned onto the kitchen island as Lio puttered about preparing a fresh pot. “So what would’ve happened if I’d shown up without you?”

Lio cut him a look, sensing this was an indirect way of asking _What’s gonna happen when I_ do _show up without you in the future, since I’m definitely gonna drop by unannounced now_. “…If the roving sentries didn’t catch you first, you would’ve been… _politely asked_ to get the fuck off our land.”

“Wh—I don’t get a pass?”

“You got a pass today because you had a Burnish to vouch for you. It won’t work again.”

“Hm. So I better get my fill of this place while I can, is that what you’re saying?”

It wasn’t, but Lio let him think it—and he was saved from any further probing questions by the timely rapping of loud fists on his door. Lio opened his mouth to invite his generals through, but they didn’t seem inclined to wait on his stoop, barging in and calling for him in strident tones.

“ _Boss?_ _Boss!_ ”

“Kitchen,” Lio called, rifling through his cabinet for a clean mug, and Galo gave him a funny look.

“Hey, Magnus was on sentry duty and he said— _whoa_.” Gueira drew up short, Meis bumping into him from behind, and as a pair, they cowered behind the jamb for a long moment before evidently recalling that they were supposed to be powerful, respected members of this community and slinked around to the counter by Lio, giving Galo a wide berth.

“This is Galo,” Lio said, casual as he could. Perhaps if he made no ado about it, Gueira and Meis would ignore the elephant in the room, and they could move on to business. “Galo, these are my generals. Gueira and Meis.”

“Generals?” Galo frowned, and sensing weakness, Gueira and Meis began to prowl around the island, sizing him up now he didn’t seem like such a threat.

Lio silently willed the coffee to percolate faster when Gueira began actually _sniffing_ around Galo, drawing back to ask, “Wait, is he Burnish?”

“No,” was all Lio said, declining to elaborate.

“Then why does he smell— _hold up_.” Gueira straightened, shoulders slumping as he jerked a thumb at Galo. “Boss, no. _This_ guy?”

Galo jerked when Meis began to poke at the spangle of scars adorning his left arm, scrambling off his stool to put some space between them. “What guy? And ‘Boss’? Boss of what?”

“Yes, him,” Lio sighed. “And I don’t want to hear it. It’s not as if I had any say in the matter. It’s the— _Promare_. It was rather insistent.”

Gueira left off, but Meis still seemed unaccountably curious about Galo’s scars, much to Galo’s dismay. “Well, yeah, but—we thought you’d at least find one of _us_ , Boss.”

“Boss of _what_?” Galo squawked, awkwardly angling his body so Meis couldn’t lay hands on him, as it seemed he was very keen to do. “Mr.—Gueis? Meira? I’m sorry, can you—please not—”

“What’d you _do_ to him, Boss…?” Meis marveled, and he sounded almost impressed; this had been a mistake of the _utmost_ degree.

“I didn’t _do_ anything—it was, as I said, _the Promare_. And if I’d been drawn to one of us, I _would_ have taken up with them. But I wasn’t. I’m not. It’s _him_ , end of story. Can we _please_ move on, now?” The coffee maker construct gave a burble of completion, and Lio seized on it. “I need you two to gather everyone from the community you can find in the library. Leave a skeleton crew of sentinels—this shouldn’t take long. Squads in the atrium, everyone else in the stacks.” He grabbed the pot’s handle and moved to tip it into his mug, then froze, worrying his lip in thought. “…No children.”

Gueira crossed his arms over his chest, evidently no longer interested in Galo. “…What’s going on? Is it a raid? Where are your pants?”

“It’s not a raid,” Lio sighed, bringing his freshly poured mug to his lips and taking a long, slow drag of the aromatic fumes. “Call the meeting.”

If Gueira needed to be told twice, Meis certainly didn’t, and with a hand at Gueira’s elbow and a soft but commanding, “Let’s go,” the pair promptly departed to see Lio’s bidding done, leaving him to enjoy his coffee in peace. He knew he had another long, drawn out discussion waiting for him on the back end, but one crisis at a time. He was only human.

He took a careful, testing sip—instinct, though he knew he needed no longer fear being burned by scalding liquids—and turned to see Galo, frowning at him from beneath deep, furrowed brows. 

“…‘Boss’. You’re their leader. You’re in charge of this place.”

It sounded like an accusation, and Lio’s hackles rose. “Yes, and?”

“You said ‘your people’, I thought that was just...like, other Burnish.” The frown softened, waxing more confused and disappointed and less overtly hostile. “I didn’t know you were their _boss_ -boss.”

Lio reminded himself to relax—this was Galo. Just Galo. A threat, true—but not in the way Lio was used to dealing with. Not an immediate one. “Well now you know. What does it matter?”

“Nothing,” Galo said, a bit too defensively. “Just…” He shifted in place, going red and having the gall to look _ashamed_. “Just—I feel like…I maybe wouldn’t have done some of the things we did, if I’d known.”

Fuck. Lio couldn’t deal with this right now. One crisis at a time, that was how he worked. He needed to not have this _one constant_ in his life these past months start to crumble, not now. But he ought to have expected this, shouldn’t he? Galo was difficult enough with his Burnish-not-kink, the almost worshipful way he handled Lio—this? This would change _everything—_

“I mean, shit, I jerked off the Burnish King in a _toilet_!”

Lio choked on his coffee, pounding his chest with his fist and grimacing. _Oh_. He rubbed away the dribble from his lips with a roll of his eyes, tension leaving his shoulders. “I’m not their _King_ , you idiot.”

“You’ve got _generals_. You’re at least a President or something.”

“I’m Burnish,” Lio said, stubborn on the point. He wouldn’t be placed on any higher a pedestal than he deserved, not by Galo of all people. He needed _one person_ to see him for what he was at his most basic, and that would be this person he’d shown that side of himself to. “And human. Besides—” He shrugged, bringing the mug back to his lips. “I liked being jerked off in a toilet.” Galo gave him a look that could only be described as atrociously skeptical. “Did you not?”

“I would’ve preferred a bed, if we’re being honest.”

“Mm. We got there eventually. And _several_ times since.”

Galo donned a goofy grin despite himself, gaze gone distant. “Hell yeah…” He quickly recalled himself, though, and schooled his features, sliding around to stand next to Lio, and he poked him in the shoulder. “So you haven’t been, like, ditching important meetings for…” The finger that had been poking Lio in the shoulder now drifted down to indicate his crotch.

“ _No_. I haven’t.” Lio slapped the hand away and took a step back, lest Galo get any ideas. “Shockingly enough, I’ve been able to rein in my raging libido long enough to get some governing done.”

Galo crossed his arms over the counter, leering at Lio. “You’ve got a raging libido now? Not your Promare? This I’ve gotta see more of.”

A spark of offense kindled in Lio’s chest—their relationship was complicated indeed, but Lio hoped he didn’t come across as an _entirely_ unwilling participant. He might have liked to have more control over the timing of their liaisons, but it didn’t mean he was incapable of enjoying himself when pushed to it. “…Fine, perhaps I misspoke. Not raging, but more…smoldering.”

Galo rubbed his chin in thought. “Smoldering, hm?”

“Indeed. Always there, hot and hidden—waiting to be stoked.” Lio set his mug down and sidled back over to Galo until he was right up inside his personal space, sharing body heat, and Lio cocked his hip until he brushed, just so, against Galo’s crotch. Galo swallowed audibly, releasing a stuttering breath, and Lio tilted his head up until their lips were but a hair’s breadth apart. “… _Waiting_ being the operative word here.”

He drew back, and Galo boggled. “I—what?”

“I need to address my people. They’ll be gathering in the library soon enough—Gueira and Meis won’t dawdle.”

“Well—yeah, but…” Galo visibly wilted. “…You didn’t have to do that.”

“No, I didn’t,” Lio agreed with a tight smile. “I wanted to.”

“I guess you can be a dick when you’re _not_ horny too, then.”

“Who says I’m not horny?” He lifted onto his toes, pressing a chaste kiss to the long line of Galo’s jaw. “Wait here, and try not to get into any trouble. I’m going to change.”

Galo pressed a hand over the patch of skin Lio had just kissed. “Change?”

Lio tugged at the oversized t-shirt. “I can’t very well explain what’s being asked of me to an audience of several hundred dressed in your sleepclothes, can I?”

“You still haven’t told _me_ what’s being asked of you,” Galo reminded sourly.

Lio was already halfway up the stairs leading to his bedroom. “Then you’d better attend the meeting, hadn’t you?”

The library had not been an actual _library_ in quite some time—since long before Lio and his band had moved into the area and appropriated the bones of the community development for their own purposes. It was the largest public structure in Pyropolis, though, and as such was commonly used as a community center—potlucks, talent shows, any excuse for a festival or gathering, they were all held here. It seemed a shame to use this pulpit to deliver such grave news.

But being leader meant making the tough decisions—and one of those tough decisions was ensuring his people were fully informed of issues that involved them, allowing them agency in the choices he made on their behalf. It was as simple as that—distasteful, but simple.

By the time he stepped through the imposing double doors leading into the library, Galo in tow, the atrium and stacks were nearly full to bursting, and the din of a dozen different conversations was deafening. The crowd parted for him like water before a prow, and every eye that for whatever reason wasn’t fixed on _Lio_ found its way to _Galo_ instead. 

When they reached the dais, Lio nodded to a dark little corner hidden behind one of the massive white columns that stretched the whole three stories to the glassed-over roof of the library. “Watch from there.”

Galo followed his eye, frowning. “ _There_? In case you haven’t noticed, _everyone_ saw us walk in together; if you wanna pretend like you don’t know me, it’s a little too late for that.”

“Don’t be dramatic—this is an important speech I’m about to deliver. I simply don’t want you distracting anyone with your presence.”

Galo arched a brow. “Hm. And by ‘anyone’, do you mean _you_?”

Lio shrugged. “I might. Now _go_.”

“Yes, Boss,” Galo said in sing-song, sauntering over to lean against the pillar, arms crossed and expression entirely too self-satisfied. At the back of the room, Gueira and Meis were guarding the doors and fixed Lio with twin expressions that said _You brought this upon yourself._

With a sigh, Lio tromped up the steps to ascend the dais, and when he faced the crowd of worried, curious faces staring back, a hush fell over the room. Lio felt a tension strain his shoulders—though he was sure it was imagined. The weight of the crown, Galo would probably laugh.

“I’d like to start off saying that…you all have placed rather a lot of trust in me to lead you—to see that this settlement is kept secure, that your futures are safeguarded, that you’re allowed to live and love and build families and friendships in peace. I do not take that lightly, so I stand before you today with news that will affect us all. This is a matter that I must handle alone, which may make you wonder why I’m telling you about it at all. The simple truth is that…even if I must be the one to carry it out, I don’t agree that it’s my decision to make. So I’ll put it to you—a handful of Burnish who must speak for all of us. Just as I, one Burnish, must act for all of us.

“I had it put reasonably bluntly to me, so I won’t try and smooth down the rough edges for any of you either: our Promare, the creatures trapped in the earth’s core who have given us these fantastic abilities that have driven a wedge between us and our fellow humans…are slowly but steadily killing the planet. Through no fault of their own, their presence in the core has destabilized the earth, and if they cannot be returned promptly to their own dimension and the rift connecting our universes closed, the instability will lead to the destruction of this planet, and all its inhabitants. 

“This isn’t a sudden development—it’s been building for some time apparently, but we’re now at a tipping point. A team of Promepolitan scientists has asked for our help—my help—to avert this coming crisis. I’ll travel to the earth’s core, where…where I’ll attempt to send the Promare back where they came from and close the rift, so our planet can start to heal.” He paused. “This would mean, as I’m sure you can surmise, that there would be no more Burnish.”

This brought a chorus of soft gasps rippling through the crowd, and Lio felt the tension build—the planet was one thing, a vast unknowable mass that they could not fully comprehend. But their Promare? They could hold those flames in the palm of their hands. They could hear the silent whispers inside their hearts. They could see the protective power in the very walls of their city. And now Lio was telling them that, depending on their decision, all of it might disappear in a snap. That it _had_ to, for the sake of that vast, unknowable mass.

“The world would be as it once was, before the Great World Blaze,” he pressed on. “But I won’t lie to you and say that this would magically solve all of our problems. That we’d be welcomed back into the great city-states, like Promepolis, with open arms. Doubtless a fair few of you wouldn’t want that anyway. But this is the state of things, regardless.

“So, we must decide. Do we agree to help the Promepolitans—and the rest of the four billion or so on this planet? Do we sacrifice all that we’ve been persecuted for, all that has made us into who we are, for the sake of those who will in all likelihood treat us no better tomorrow than they did yesterday? Do we do this so that we might live, survive, and thrive—for our own sake and for no others’? Speak, Pyropolis. This is your decision as much as mine.”

His voice died away in the quiet hush that had fallen over the space, all eyes trained on him, until one of the squad leaders eased to his feet—an older man, old enough to be Lio’s grandfather. “If you do this, if we lose our Promare and you save the planet and become some big-shot hero, what’s to become of the city?”

From most anyone else, the _big-shot hero_ crack might have sounded like insubordination—but Coreolus liked to think himself a jokester, and at his age, most indulged him. Including Lio. 

“…I don’t know,” Lio answered honestly. “I think, though, that we can expect to be exposed. Our constructs will surely crumble, which means our walls, our homes, anything we’ve created—” God, Detroit. His _coffee maker_. “They’ll be gone. We’ll need to be prepared to defend ourselves.”

“But the city will still be here?” A new voice—this time a matron in the stacks, with her family crowded around her.

Lio squared his shoulders and nodded. “The city will still be here. We’ll all still be here, too. As long as we like. Walls help keep us safe—but we’re no slouches in self-defense ourselves. We’ll carry on.”

This seemed to satisfy, until another voice piped up: a young woman from Coreolus’s squad. “To be honest, Boss, this doesn’t sound like much of a choice at all…” When she was met with unsure murmurs, she went on, “I mean: it’s either help out, and maybe not die, or don’t help out and _definitely_ die. Assuming these Promepolitan scientists you’re talking about know their stuff.”

“You aren’t wrong…” Lio sighed. “If we come at this from purely a survival stance…well, the decision is an easy one. We fight, we fight with everything we have, and if we die, then we die trying.” He let his gaze wander around the room, meeting every eye he could. “But some things are more important than simply surviving. Things like honor—and pride.”

“I think that’s just you, Boss,” Gueira snickered, drawing a stream of uneasy chuckles in his wake, and Lio gave a sad smile.

“All right. Maybe it is just me. All the more reason for me to put this matter to all of you.”

“Can we help?” A boy who had to be younger than even Lio called from the stacks, and Lio cut Gueira and Meis a hard look—he’d explicitly said _no children_. “Going all the way to the core—can you really _do_ that? It sounds dangerous!”

“Squad three’s ready to go, Boss!” Magnus whooped, and his fellows pumped their fists with loud cheers of support that only died away when Lio waved a hand for silence.

“Your offer means everything to me, truly—you understand the gravity of the situation, and your first thought is, ‘How can I help?’ That’s admirable—and it means a great deal to me.” He shook his head, though. “But this is something I must do alone. So I ask that you trust me with this task, if we’re agreed it’s what should happen, and guard this city in my stead until I should return.”

His eye drifted over to the column behind which he’d hidden Galo, and there in the shadows, Lio could see him standing, arms crossed over his chest and a frown etched on his features that said he had a few choice opinions of his own to share but was keeping his mouth shut. No distractions, just like he’d promised.

Lio entertained a few more comments from the crowd, answering questions and soothing worries as best he could, but by the time he adjourned the meeting, he was unfortunately no more settled on the matter now than he’d been an hour earlier. 

The kitchens were fired for the communal dinner prepared for the residents each evening, so the steady stream of people leaving the library stretched in an unbroken line to the park two blocks away, where tables and chairs were being quickly marshaled as everyone began grabbing plates and diving in. Lio looped an arm through Galo’s, keeping him close lest he get snatched away by curious Burnish before Lio was ready to part with him.

“Nice speech,” Galo said, not sounding at all like he meant it.

“Thank you. I’ve been told I have a way with words.”

“You could’ve _told me_ about this, you know. Would’ve been nice to have seen it coming.”

“Yes, I could have.” Lio nodded to Gueira and Meis in silent command to head on without him. “But as you heard: I’m still undecided about the whole thing. I wanted to hear from my people first. They’re the ones whose lives are going to be irreparably changed by all this, whether I succeed or not.”

“Wow,” Galo said with a scoffing huff, pulling his arm back, and Lio heard his words through the filter of Galo’s perception, wincing. 

“…I didn’t mean it like that. Just…it’s different. You have everything to gain by my doing this and everything to lose by my not. These people? They’ll lose something either way. There is no happy ending here. It felt…” He sighed. “It felt like something they ought to have a say in. And something I assumed I already had your support for.”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions about me,” Galo said coolly—but then he broke, sighing around a weak smile. “What’s a guy gotta do to earn that kind of respect from you, huh? Be Burnish, I guess?”

“I believe we’ve already had a _lengthy_ conversation concerning how I feel about the idea of you being Burnish.”

“Yeah… But we could always revisit it?”

Galo looked like he wanted to lean in and start up discussions anew, so Lio took a measured step back, keeping his hands to himself. He inclined his head toward the few remaining stragglers heading to the park. “…I really ought to make my rounds, after that meeting. I’ve been neglecting my post of late—”

“See? I knew you were blowing off work for quickies.”

“—and I’m sure they’re all still a bit unsettled. I should show my face and listen to their concerns.” Galo gave him a weak little salute, and Lio offered a grateful smile in return. The matter hadn’t been entirely put to bed, of this Lio was confident, but it seemed Galo at least knew when was and wasn’t the right time to have an involved argument. 

He gave Galo permission to roam free, interacting with others as he pleased, and instructed Gueira and Meis to keep an eye on him to be sure he met with no trouble while Lio mingled with his people. He couldn’t help, though, the way his attention seemed to wander when Galo was out of sight—and to drift back to him when he was.

The children in particular seemed quite curious about him, climbing on Galo like he was some living jungle gym and only occasionally setting bits of his hair on fire. It was amusing and a tiny bit endearing too—so much so that Lio had to remind himself sharply to not get too attached to the sight. Galo wasn’t Burnish—no matter how much the idea appealed to his Promare—and so didn’t belong here. This was _their_ city. Their sanctuary. Where they could be themselves without worrying about having to hold back, for fear of harming someone. 

Galo was truly a nice person, to a fault even, but if they started letting outsiders in…where would it stop? A city of Burnish, by Burnish, for Burnish. That was how it had to be for now. 

Once the children were summoned by their parents or guardians for dinner, Galo wandered back over to Lio’s side, a wide grin on his face and covered in little starburst scars that would likely heal by morning, looking positively enchanted in the fading light. “This place really is amazing, Lio,” he breathed, gratefully taking a plate that was pushed in front of him. “How come you never brought me here before?”

And how was Lio meant to answer that question? Most would have taken the hint, but not Galo Thymos. No, he had to have the truth shoved in his face, spelled out in big block letters. Because the man just didn’t innately _understand_ that Burnish and other humans were better off living in their separate worlds, where neither felt threatened by the other. That just because he could cavort with Burnish children after a trying day didn’t mean he ought to be living within the same walls as them. That just because he and Lio got on well enough and fit like a key in a lock didn’t mean they were ‘soulmates’ or any such rubbish.

“Ah,” Galo said, nodding shortly. “I guess it’s…kind of embarrassing, my being here. The King fraternizing with non-Burnish can’t be a good look…”

“I’m not the _King_ ,” Lio reminded wearily, digging into his own plate with a stab of his fork. “And that’s not it at all. You saw yourself most everyone here’s only curious about you. Many of them have non-Burnish friends or family members of their own. It’s not frowned upon or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah? Well your guard dogs don’t really seem to like it.” Galo jerked his chin to where Gueira and Meis had staked out half a table for themselves, positioned so they could keep an eye on Lio. 

“They do that with everyone,” Lio said. “Don’t take it personally.” When Galo’s expression remained skeptical, he sighed. “…Those two haven’t had the greatest track record with non-Burnish. And they’re rather protective of me—it’s their job, after all.” Lio gestured to the tables around them, filled with dozens of bowed heads wolfing down the evening’s scrumptious gourmet meatloaf and instant mashed potatoes. “As you’ve seen, my people largely have no issues with outsiders.”

“Outsiders,” Galo repeated with a frown, tone flat.

“ _Non-Burnish_ ,” Lio quickly amended. “…You can’t understand what it’s like, being Burnish—what we’ve been through. What we’ve had to do, just to survive. It isn’t all pretty showers of sparks and suped-up Burnish cycles, you know.”

He could hear his tone, knew he sounded more childish than he wanted to, here in the middle of Pyropolis and surrounded on all sides by his people, but Galo brought it out of him, infuriatingly enough. He couldn’t keep his head around Galo, felt shame for things he ought to be proud of—or at least confident in. And Galo…Galo just took it. Accepted it.

Like now, when he reached the hand he had under the table over to rest on Lio’s thigh, thumb stroking softly. “…I do know,” he said. “I may be an idiot, but I’m not stupid.”

No, he wasn’t. Lio placed his hand over Galo’s, letting his fingers slip into the spaces between Galo’s fingers, and held there. It probably _wasn’t_ a good look for the ‘King’ to be fraternizing with a non-Burnish, no matter what he said or how open-minded his people might be. But god, he couldn’t help it. Didn’t _want_ to help it.

Suddenly, and very violently, he didn’t want to be here, out in public, having to sit chastely next to Galo and unable to do so much as thread their fingers together in plain sight of all without birthing a thousand rumors and demeaning his station. He wanted privacy. He wanted Galo. And his Promare, pulsing warmly in his belly, wanted Galo too.

He pushed his plate away with his free hand, squeezing Galo’s wrist meaningfully with the other. “…Are you finished eating?”

“Ah I wha?” Galo swallowed thickly with some effort, coughing. “Finished? I—well, I’m kind of—”

“Galo.” He angled his hand so their palms slid together, then finally gave in and threaded their fingers together. “I want to go.”

Galo swallowed again, for an entirely different reason this time, licking his lips and flicking a careful gaze out across the crowd. He lowered his voice, soft and husky, “…Thought you needed to ‘mingle’?”

“Some needs trump others,” Lio said, tone reflecting the rapidly increasing urgency.

Galo seemed to understand, blessedly. “…Were you thinking about me being Burnish again?”

All right, perhaps he didn’t understand entirely. “Can we just _go_?”

“Hey, you’re the King, not me.”

“I’m not—” Lio started but abandoned the thought; he’d got his way, and that would be enough, and with little more than a meaningful nod to Gueira and Meis—the former of whom looked _most_ distressed by Lio’s sudden departure—he led Galo by the wrist through the sparse trees and away, into the darkened streets.

Galo didn’t waste time gawking in the foyer this time—not that Lio had been inclined to give him time to do so even if he’d wished. Instead, he followed Lio obediently up the stairs to the landing on the second floor, and down the short hallway to Lio’s bedroom. 

“Holy shit…” Galo breathed before beginning to chuckle in a very unsettling manner. “You… _really_ like pillows, don’t you?”

“Don’t judge,” Lio sniffed, peeling away the constricting suit he’d donned for his speech. His people had certain expectations he wanted to meet—Galo had none. It was one of the nicer aspects of this strange relationship of theirs. “It’s a luxury I feel I’ve more than earned after years living rough.”

“Hey, do you see me complaining?” Galo said, launching himself backwards onto Lio’s bed, which was little more than a mound of pillows and cushions piled atop an old box spring on the floor. Lio winced when the springs groaned loudly with the impact, but it seemed to hold, and Galo was already digging out space enough for them to burrow together amidst Lio’s pillow hoard. “Doesn’t exactly seem like the easiest space to get hot and heavy in, though.”

Lio heard the unspoken question and declined to answer it, only shrugging and quipping, “You’d be surprised how creative some of us can get when…overcome by the urge.” Gueira and Meis had made it their personal goal to fuck in every corner of Pyropolis they could find, it seemed sometimes. 

“But not you.” Lio frowned at the challenge, and Galo flashed him a toothy smile as he tugged off his workshirt. “Come on. Every time you get so horny you can’t contain it, you make us go home. Even when there’s a perfectly serviceable dirty toilet stall ten feet away.”

Lio turned away, snatching up the oversized t-shirt of Galo’s he’d been wearing before being kidnapped and drawing it on once again. “If you’d rather I slipped under the table to suck you off, then by all means, let’s go back to the park.”

Galo snorted softly, lying back and patting the space at his side in invitation. “Nah, I didn’t really like the dirty toilet stall either.”

Lio obliged, crawling over the pillows and settling down next to Galo. It was such an odd feeling—being in his bed, in his quarters, in his city. With Galo, close enough to touch. 

He called the tiny sparks of his Promare flickering in the bedside lamps back into himself, and the room went dark, the only light that of the moonbeams streaming through the netting curtains hanging over his bedroom window. Still, even in the darkness, he could make out the faint glow of Galo’s eyes, watching him intently. Waiting, patient and indulgent.

Why was it always _Lio_ showing up unannounced, making demands, being unreasonable? Galo was the only one of them who actually had any _say_ in this business—yet he never did, always waiting for a cue from Lio.

Lio lay there, head on his favorite pillow, watching Galo, who was watching him back. “…So are we not going to do anything?”

Galo gave him a soft, quirked smile. “I was gonna leave it up to you. You’re the horny one, after all.”

“I was—I am, I suppose.” His fires had metaphorically cooled, since being out in the park, having to share Galo with others—and perhaps that was what had triggered it. The last time had been in a public setting too. Perfect, just what he needed on top of everything: a Promare that got _jealous_ over its host’s partner having other platonic relationships. Then again, human sexuality and romance were an entirely different beast from what the Promare were likely used to, so perhaps this was just part and parcel of the whole ‘colony cock’ experience he would have to learn to deal with.

He wished, though, that Galo could just…not be so _Galo_. So easygoing and willing. Eager to indulge in whatever Lio had planned for them. It felt so one-sided. It felt…

It felt fake. And it was, wasn’t it? Manufactured emotions driven by hormones. He forgot that sometimes—and perhaps it was moments like these that were necessary in helping him remember what he was doing, and why he was doing it.

“This all just feels…beneath me.”

He could practically _hear_ Galo blinking in confusion. “What does?”

“…This. You. And me.” And before Galo could go misinterpreting his meaning, Lio explained, “Submitting to base instincts when I ought to be _helping_ people.” He turned his face into the nearest pillow. “…It feels wrong to enjoy it.”

A hand settled on the bony knob of his hip, fingers tracing the line of his body and drawing goosebumps in their wake. “Hm. So that’s why you always run off right after?”

“I don’t run off _right_ after!” Lio said, before amending, “…Anymore.”

Galo gave a soft chuckle. “Well, I guess that’s better than thinking you didn’t like me.”

“I don’t—” Lio started, then cut himself off to actually decide what he was going to say instead of playing off the cuff. This was important, and so he would take it seriously. “I don’t _not_ like you, Galo Thymos.”

“Be still my beating heart,” Galo said with a wry, twisted tone, and Lio shifted closer until he could just make out Galo’s face in the dim light.

“I told you before, though: I didn’t really have any choice in the matter, and that makes all the difference to me. It’s just—biology. I _hate_ being ruled by instinct. It’s just another form of control. I _need_ freedom. Burnish are—”

“—Meant to be free,” Galo said, nodding. “I pay attention sometimes.” He propped his head up in one hand. “And hey, it sounds like if you go through with this mission of yours, your Promare’d go back where it came from and you’d get to be a normal human again.” Lio could feel him studying Lio’s face carefully. “…Do you not want that?”

“Of course I want it!” Lio snapped, and it was the truth—but also true were his next words: “…But, I also _don’t_ want it. I know it sounds ridiculous, and perhaps nonsensical, but that’s how feelings often are. My Promare is a part of me—I wouldn’t be who I am now without it. And I’m not one of those Burnish who want to watch the world burn for how they’ve treated us—I know there’s good out there, and beauty, and four billion people who don’t deserve to be consigned to nothingness just because of a grudge. But it doesn’t make the decision any easier…” He rolled onto his back, holding out one hand and frowning at it. “If your arm is diseased and you must cut it off to save the rest of your body, it’s still difficult to bring yourself to do so.”

Galo shuddered. “Geez, that’s a… _vivid_ comparison.”

Lio huffed around a smile. “Quite.”

There was a silent beat, though, and then: “…But you’d still do it, in the end. Cut it off.” Lio cocked his head to the side, but Galo’s expression was unreadable. It was strange, for someone who generally wore his heart on his sleeve. “Maybe not everyone could make that decision, but you could.” Galo brought a hand up, laying his palm softly against Lio’s jaw and running a calloused thumb over his cheek. “It’s what makes you _you_. It’s part of you—doing the right thing. Even if it makes people hate you. Even if you hate _yourself_. You still do what needs doing. Whether it’s propositioning a stranger in a bar toilet, or traveling to the earth’s core.”

“The latter won’t be nearly as much fun as the former’s been, I fear.”

Galo grinned a bit more honestly this time. “Yeah, well. You got lucky on that count.” He then sobered. “You’re not just a Burnish. You’re these people’s leader. I saw the way they responded to you. The way everyone looked at you in the park, from the kids to the old geezers. You’ve got a responsibility to keep them safe. Listen to what they’re saying, but in the end, it’s up to you to do what you think’s best for everyone. Even if ‘everyone’ is just the people within these walls. Maybe more so. You’re probably the only one who really gives an honest shit about them, after all.”

Lio sighed, groping for one of the throw pillows and clutching it tight to his chest, only narrowly reining in the urge to cover his face with it and pray he passed out from lack of oxygen. He closed his eyes against the pounding headache knocking at the backs of them. “How am I to even know this Prometh character is telling the truth? I mean—he _kidnapped me_. This could just be…I don’t know, some elaborate plan to rid the world of the Burnish plague in one fell swoop, and there might be no danger to the earth at all. We’d just be…” He wrinkled his nose. “Neutered.”

“I guess you’ve got a point…” Galo said, crossing his legs in sympathy. “But…well, I really don’t think Heris would be involved in anything that might put Aina in danger. She’s crazy protective of Aina—even got into Burnish research just to help her.”

“Ardebit’s and my own ideas of ‘helping’ Burnish likely differ.”

“Okay yeah…” Galo shrugged. “Well, I can’t vouch for Prometh’s credibility, but he founded Burning Rescue and helped show everyone that Burnish and humans could work together for the common good. It doesn’t seem like he’d spend the last thirty years working to integrate Burnish back into society, whole and _with_ their Promare, only to pull something like this.”

It was these words, and how Galo so easily found the innocent explanation for everything Prometh was seeking to achieve that led Lio to realize that they would, in all likelihood, always be at odds on the meat of this matter, however much they discussed it. Galo didn’t see—or else didn’t want to see—how this could all go so very wrong for the Burnish. What sort of risk Lio was taking, even considering trusting these total strangers with his own life, and with the future of his people.

“…You’re too trusting,” he said, soft and accusing.

“Hey. No I’m not.”

“You went into a bathroom stall with a Burnish stranger thirty seconds after trading greetings. I could have killed you.” 

“…Well, yeah. But. You were hot.”

“So?”

“So I went because you were hot. Not because I trusted you.”

Lio heaved himself up into a seated position, staring down at Galo in bald shock. “That...that’s not any better, you realize? I need to know you understand that’s not any better. In fact, I think it’s worse.” God, this man—this stupid _fool_. And Lio’s stupid Promare, inexplicably attracted to him and his goody-two-shoes heart.

“The point is,” Galo said, snatching the little throw pillow Lio had been clutching for comfort and whapping him across the shoulder with it before tossing it into the pile. “Sometimes you’ve just gotta go with your gut. I don’t know if Prometh’s telling the truth. Neither do you. But can you take the chance he’s not?”

Indeed he couldn’t. What was the point in claiming to be guarding your people’s future if it was your fault there was no future for them at all? “…If I go, and this mission succeeds…there would be no more Burnish. We’d be stripped of everything. Helpless. Good or bad experiences aside, these abilities help us survive. Aren’t I obligated to protect my people in that respect too?” 

It was a rhetorical question, but Galo took it to heart. “…You can’t protect them from everything, Lio. That’s not on you. You’re just one person—and I saw them in that meeting. They were ready to help you, no questions asked. They’re strong enough to defend themselves too, I bet. Especially if you prepare them for what might happen.”

“What might happen…” Lio hadn’t allowed himself to seriously consider the personal blow he would suffer, if this crisis was everything Prometh had chalked it up to being. He hadn’t lied, saying he wanted to be rid of his Promare. But the thought left a very empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, like the thing was already gone. It made him feel sick and woozy, and if that was what happened from just _imagining_ it, how much worse would it be to experience it?

“…They’re really alive for you guys, huh?”

“What?”

“The Promare. You always talk about it like it’s got thoughts and feelings.”

“Because it does.” Lio boggled; what had Galo been thinking this whole time—that Lio was hearing voices? “It’s a living creature. And it’s trapped here…” He laid a hand over his stomach as he settled back down, pillowing his head this time on Galo’s arm. It wasn’t comfortable—but he preferred the closeness for now. “Our abilities…they aren’t really _ours_. It’s selfish to want to hold on to them. I shouldn’t want to anyway—they make us hurt others without meaning, sometimes grievously, they give the worst sorts of people astonishing power to wreak havoc, and in doing so cast a dark cloud over the rest of us, sending us into hiding and earning the scorn of people we’re meant to share this world with as equals.”

Galo nodded, adding, “And they make you horny for no good reason.” 

Lio had to give an indulgent little snort. “…Yeah, something like that.”

“So at least you’d have your freedom. Since you seem awfully preoccupied with it.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never had his taken away.” He stared up into Galo’s face, searching for something he couldn’t quite name but knew he’d recognize once he saw it. “…Without my Promare, I wouldn’t need this anymore.”

“Yeah? That’s what I just said.”

“…I wouldn’t need to come to you. You wouldn’t have to do this with me.” Not that Galo _had_ to do it now, but Lio knew that there was still some sense of obligation between them. In a sense, Galo wasn’t any more ‘free’ to live as he pleased than Lio.

Galo lifted up onto his elbows, shoving Lio aside in the doing. “What? Wouldn’t have to—why would you—” He pursed his lips into a thin, tight line. “…I wouldn’t _get_ to, you mean.”

And no, it wasn’t what Lio had meant at all. He eased up, propped up by one arm. “I’m giving you an out, you idiot. Don’t be difficult. You’ve more than done your good turn for the _millennium_.”

“ _Good turn_? Fucking hell, is that what you—” Galo scrubbed both hands through his hair, biting out with a sour frown, “I get you don’t have a lot of choice in this. And that sucks, it really does. But don’t kid yourself into thinking I’m some big-hearted philharmonist.”

“Philanthropist.”

Galo braced one hand on Lio’s shoulder, using his weight to knock Lio onto his back and loom over him in a not altogether unappreciated fashion. “…I don’t want an out. If I did, I’d have taken it already, and you’re a good guy, so you’d have given it to me, even if it meant you’d blow up.” Lio opened his mouth to remind for the fifteenth time that he _wasn’t_ going to blow up if he didn’t get laid (at least, he didn’t think he would), but Galo pressed on with a desperate sort of earnestness. “I like you. Maybe you don’t _not_ like me, but I _do_ like _you_. I like this. And maybe you don’t want this, or don’t _want_ to want it, or don’t _know_ if you want it—but I feel like my head’s pretty clear.” He leaned down, until their noses nearly brushed, and said in a tone that brooked no argument. “I’d still want this. I’d still want you, even if you weren’t Burnish. You’d still be Lio, and that’s plenty for me.” He then drew away, sliding down onto his back once more with a wince. “I think it’s all I can handle, actually.”

Lio blinked into the darkness in silence, not knowing quite how to respond. He’d wanted Galo’s honesty, wanted him to be the one to say things first, to say what he wanted—and he’d gotten it, hadn’t he? It was difficult to believe, after that speech, that Galo didn’t understand what he was talking about. That he didn’t mean these things he said.

Something warm pulsed in Lio’s chest, and for once, he didn’t think it had anything to do with his Promare.

He rolled over, shuffling back to pillow his head on Galo’s arm again, and closed his eyes, the soft, steady rhythm of Galo’s heartbeat in his ear.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I hate the idea of not being free to make my own decisions so much, I imagine too often others feel the same.” Galo just grunted, the sound rumbling through his chest. “I know you’re a good man. It’s what I like about you.”

“Yeah? What else?”

“Need a bit of ego stroking before you can fall asleep?”

“Well if I’m not getting anything _else_ stroked, may as well.”

Lio cocked his head so he could look Galo in the eye, one brow quirked. “Is that a request?”

Galo just gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I wouldn’t say no. But this is nice.” He took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Feels almost normal.”

Lio snorted softly. “I assure you, nothing about _this_ is normal.”

“Fair point,” Galo allowed, drawing Lio closer. “But it’s nice to pretend.”

And as Lio had nothing to say to refute that, he buttoned his lips, burrowed into Galo’s side to warm him against the chill of the Waste’s nights, and drifted off at last.


	8. Chapter 8

Lio woke before Galo for once; he’d always been an early riser, or so he thought, but the hours Galo kept for his job had him up well before the crack of dawn most days, and with no rounds to make or briefs to receive, Lio had lately been indulging in lazy mornings by and large.

But his body seemed to know it was back in Pyropolis now, so his internal clock jolted him wide awake just as the rest of the city was starting to rouse. He carefully extricated himself from the tangle of limbs he and Galo had formed at some point during the night, and aside from a grunting snuffle, Galo seemed only too happy to sleep in while Lio readied himself for the day.

He padded on light feet down the stairs to the kitchen, where to his complete and utter lack of surprise, Gueira and Meis were already waiting, having let themselves in and downed half a pot of coffee between them. Meis raised his mug in greeting, still looking half-asleep himself, but Gueira was bright-eyed and leering. “So, get much _thinking_ done last night, Boss? It’s a big decision you’ve gotta make, so I’m sure you thought _long_ and _hard_ about it.”

Meis swatted him on the arm, and Lio climbed gingerly up onto one of the stools surrounding the island, gratefully accepting the fresh mug Meis slid his way. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I _did_ get some thinking done.” He took a careful sip. “Though I confess I’m still of two minds about the matter.”

“Just wondering, Boss…” Meis began, “But—I mean, how sure are you this is the real deal? Obviously if there’s a chance the world _is_ gonna blow up, then that’s bad and I feel like we should do _something_ to try and stop it, sure, but… _is_ there such a chance?”

“Yeah,” Gueira said. “You said a bunch of Promepolitan scientists told you about this—you didn’t actually see it for yourself. Who’s to say the whole thing isn’t bullshit? Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve double-crossed a Burnish. You know you can’t entirely trust these people. Just because you’re using one to take the edge off—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lio snapped, with more venom than he’d quite meant, and Gueira shut up immediately. “…This and that are entirely separate matters.” Meis, to his credit, only continued calmly sipping his coffee. Fuck—there he went, sounding once again every bit like the child he appeared. He shook his head, rubbing his temples with a frown. “…I understand your concerns, I do. And you’re right: there’s no saying we aren’t being used, nothing on which to base belief and no evidence that this threat is even real and I’m not being lured to my doom.” He locked eyes with Gueira. “…But if I don’t do this, if I _don’t_ go, and our people have to pay dearly for my poor judgment, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“On the bright side,” Meis muttered, “You’d probably already be dead, so there’s that.”

Lio snorted softly, clutching his mug with both hands and re-warming his cooling coffee. He might not be able to _sense_ how cool it was, but he could tell in the taste, really he could. “…I think I have to do this. It’s not a matter of trusting or not. It’s about what I’m willing to risk…and what I’m not willing to risk. If I go, and it’s a trap—it’s my life lost. If I don’t go, and it isn’t a trap…it’s everyone else’s.” The decision was not, he realized, all that difficult to make after all.

“All right then,” Meis said, reaching for the coffee pot and topping off his and Gueira’s mugs. “Then we move on to the next order of business: How are we gonna defend this place—defend _ourselves_ —after this? When we’re powerless? When _you’re_ powerless? We’ll be sitting ducks out here—no weapons, no walls, no roof over our heads.”

“No coffee makers,” Gueira moaned, throwing a longing glance back at the gleaming black construct sitting on Lio’s counter.

They weren’t wrong—and the fact Lio didn’t have a good answer to swing back with was one of the many reasons he was still dithering. Giving up his Promare would be a difficult enough task in itself—giving it up and leaving his people defenseless? Another matter entirely.

“Stop being so dang dramatic. You won’t be sitting ducks,” came a new voice, and as a single unit, their eyes snapped to the staircase, where Galo was lumbering down. He stifled a yawn, scratching absently at his scar-spangled arm. No longer obliged to wear his medisleeve these days, the scars stood out in even greater contrast now. “Lio’s gonna make sure you’re prepped for whatever might happen.”

Gueira and Meis slowly turned back to Lio, brows lifted. “…You are?”

“Of course he is,” Galo answered, sliding onto a stool next to Lio at the island. “And me too. And my squad.”

“Your ‘squad’?” Gueira deadpanned, perhaps envisioning the fearsome units that stood watch over Pyropolis and raced through the Waste on supply runs.

“You can’t promise their help,” Lio reminded. “You aren’t their leader. You aren’t even team captain at trivia night.”

“…All right, fine.” Galo reached for Lio’s mug, taking a loud sip and grimacing—what had he been expecting? Jasmine tea? “But _I_ can still help out. Varys’s family owns a construction firm, so I bet I could convince them to sell you materials to fortify your walls and any other structures wholesale. They’ve got plenty of contractors on their payroll, too, who could probably organize the labor.”

“‘Wholesale’? Does he think we shit credits?” Meis muttered under his breath to Lio.

Gueira bristled, waving a finger in Galo’s face. “Listen up, Mr. Promepolis; we don’t need you sticking your nose into our business.”

Galo took another grimacing sip, perhaps thinking it might taste better the second time around. Evidently it did not, for he slid the mug back over to Lio. “Lio likes my nose in his business though.” 

And all right, that was enough of _that_. “Galo, I really don’t think—”

“Plus,” Galo said, ignoring Lio completely, “You guys aren’t exactly in any position to be turning down allies these days. Especially if you’re shortly about to be a hundred percent powerless.”

Gueira and Meis frowned at Lio. “So?” Gueira pressed. “ _Are_ we about to be a hundred percent powerless?”

And really, there had never been a choice to begin with, had there? He’d only hoped someone might take the decision from him. No such luck, it seemed. He sighed, nodding. “I can’t risk this being real—if it’s a double-cross, we’ll deal with that the way we’ve dealt with every bad-faith act in the past: survive and get our revenge in the end. If I see anything to make me suspect this mission isn’t everything it seems, then we’ll act—but until then, we behave as if we’re living on borrowed time.”

Galo slapped his back sharply. “Great! Was hoping you’d feel that way.” He then reached into his pocket, palming his phone and waving it in Lio’s face. “‘Cause Prometh kinda already agreed to let me be your pilot if you came onboard, so it’s been a _bitch_ not getting my hopes up.”

Lio winced, rubbing his back gingerly and directing his attention to Gueira and Meis—they would have to act quickly, and he needed his generals in lockstep with him, even if they weren’t entirely confident this was the right choice. “Finish your drinks and then send word around to the squad leaders. They’ll notify the residents in their blocks to—wait.” Lio straightened, frowning, and slowly turned to face Galo. “ _Pilot_?”

Galo’s face was the picture of elation as he bounced excitedly on his stool. “Hell yeah! I mean, you’re using the Deus X Machina to get to the core, right?”

Lio recalled, distantly, Prometh making some mention of a Deus Whatever—though he hadn’t the faintest clue what the thing _was_. “I—am?”

“Uh, _duh_? How did you think you were gonna get there? Hop into the cone of Mount Fennel and just start swimming?” Galo snorted loudly, thoroughly amused with himself, and Lio felt his cheeks tingle with a heady combination of shame and irritation.

“I wasn’t exactly keen on sticking around to hear the details from my _kidnappers_. And how I’m to get to the core is _their_ problem.”

“Not their problem—mine. ‘Cause like I said, I’m gonna be your pilot.”

And that sounded dangerously like Galo would be along for this suicide ride, which Lio was _not_ having. “I think the fuck not. Prometh mentioned _nothing_ about my needing any ‘pilot’, whatever that even means—”

“Of course he didn’t. Because you aren’t the pilot, for one, and because finding a pilot was never gonna be a problem. We’re a dime a dozen, there’s a list a mile long of Burning Rescue pilots waiting to be assigned a Burnish partner.” He poked Lio in the chest. “And that includes _me_. No way in hell I’m letting anyone else be your pilot.”

Lio swatted his hand away, temper flaring. “ _Letting_ anyone else be my pilot? That presupposes I’ll accept you for the position—and that’s _not_ a decision I’m prepared to make.”

Galo’s jaw tightened, and his brow furrowed in irritation. “Well you’d better _get_ ready to make it, because you’re not going anywhere without a pilot. Even if it’s not me, you’ll have to accept _someone_ , ‘cause you’re gonna be too busy functioning as the Deus X Machina’s engine to do any navigating. And before you go getting any crazy ideas, you _do_ want that pilot to be me, because, not to toot my own horn, I’ve got the best simulator scores of anyone in Promepolis.”

“Then I’ll find someone _outside_ of Promepolis.” Lio shook his head firmly. “You’re _not_ coming. Not when there’s no guarantee you’ll even come _back_. It’s one thing for me to risk my own life, quite another for me to risk _yours_.” He’d only agreed to go through with this _because_ it was really only his own skin he was risking if he somehow managed to make it to the core. Galo was…well, he was unacceptable. And that was that.

Galo pressed his lips into a thin line—then sighed loudly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “…Why do you always have to be so difficult?”

“Wh—I’m _not_ being difficult, I’m trying to keep you _alive_ —”

“And I’m trying to keep _you_ alive.” He shifted on the stool to face Lio proper, expression grim. “I want to go. I saw those people last night, how they looked at you. I heard how they talked about you, like you’re the lifeblood of this place. They’re scared, and still their first thought was _how can I help him?_ That’s what you do to people. That’s how you make people feel.” His expression softened. “That’s how you make _me_ feel. I want to do this. I want to help you. Plus—” He gave a half-shrug, lips crooking upward. “Your Promare likes me; it wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.”

Lio swallowed, transfixed—and _fuck_ , why had he let himself get involved with this idiot? This self-sacrificing, gallant, more-hair-than-brains, full-hearted idiot? When he looked at Lio like that, all earnest and intent, refusing to back down…it did things to Lio. Things he wanted to believe had nothing to do with his Promare. 

He was going to be selfish again. He always was, when he was horny. And sometimes when he wasn’t. When he stopped to think about it, really _Galo_ was the common denominator. This man _undid_ Lio, caused him to make the very worst choices he possibly could—all in the name of saving Lio’s life. He was absolutely—

Loud, insistent slurping interrupted Lio’s thoughts, and he slowly turned to see Gueira and Meis, still nursing their mugs of coffee and gawking at the pair of them. 

Lio narrowed his gaze in accusation. “Did I _stutter_? I told you to get the word out! What are you still doing here?”

Meis immediately made a beeline for the door, looping his arm through Gueira’s, who clapped Lio on the shoulder as he was dragged out, muttering, “Remember, Boss: _Cleanest assholes around_.”

Lio waited until he heard the door shut this time, gaze fixed on the empty coffee mugs his generals had left behind. Slobs, the both of them. “…You could die,” he reminded, as there was the very real chance Galo wasn’t taking this risk as seriously as he ought to be. This was a man who called the horrific panoply of scars covering his arm ‘Promare lovebites’, after all.

“So could you,” Galo returned.

“Yes, but I’m—”

“But you’re the only one who can do this,” Galo finished for him, and though it was not quite what Lio had been about to say, it was still true, so he let it stand. “And I’m the only one who can do _this_. So let me.” He reached over, taking Lio’s hand in his own and softly brushing a calloused thumb over Lio’s knuckles. “Let me show you I’m worth more than a good lay.”

Lio frowned down at their hands. “…A _fair_ lay.”

“Yeah?” Galo gave a little huff, chin jutting out. “And how many others am I competing against that you even have material for comparison?”

“You barely know me—certainly not well enough to have the level of confidence you do concerning my romantic affiliations.” He offered a chin jut of his own. “I could have _dozens_.”

“Yeah, you could,” Galo admitted too easily. “But I’m willing to bet you don’t, Mr. ‘It feels beneath me.’”

And all right, Lio supposed he had him there. They’d certainly had this conversation enough times before. Really, he supposed he ought to be shocked Galo _remembered_ , not that he _knew_. 

“Fine,” he huffed. “Best I’ve ever had. My body has known none but your own, it’s molded itself to you. It’s— _good god,_ are you getting _hard_?”

Galo shoved his hand into his lap, crossing his legs under the island and hunching forward, body turned so Lio couldn’t see what was, indeed, Galo’s tented pants. “Well! You’re saying all kinds of sexy stuff! Plus—” He waved around them with the hand that was not, at the moment, trying to crush his hard-on into dust. “This is a whole Burnish _city_! And you’re the President or something! I get to touch the Burnish President’s dick! That’s, like, the sexiest thing ever!”

Fantastic. They’d graduated from Burnish kinks to _power fantasies_. 

“I’m not the _President_ —” Lio started, and Galo groaned, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the countertop.

“You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what you’re _called_ , or if you’re called anything.” He cocked his head to the side, so his cheek was resting on the counter while he gazed balefully up at Lio. “…You’re important. Really important. To a lot of people. And I get to have you. I get to be the only person you’re thinking about, even if it’s just for a few minutes.” He shifted again on the stool, clearly growing more uncomfortable with each passing beat. “…I get to see a side of you no one else does. Can you blame me for getting a little excited?”

No. No, Lio could _not_. Nor could his Promare, which was boiling the very blood in Lio’s veins, it was so _eager_. Fuck—they didn’t have _time_ for this. Lio needed to be out there with Gueira and Meis, spreading the word of his intentions and reassuring his people that he would do everything in his power and beyond to ensure that whatever happened to him, _they_ at least would be safe. He couldn’t engage in mindless self-indulgence, now more than ever.

_Once more_ , he told his Promare firmly. _Once more, and then we go to work._ Whether in bright defiance or resounding agreement, his Promare pulsed warm in his belly as Lio hopped off the stool with a sigh. 

Galo’s head snapped up, brows knitting. “What’re you—”

“Turn around,” Lio said, rubbing his jaw. “And slide forward a bit. Knees apart, come on.” He slapped Galo’s thighs when he didn’t receive the response with the prompt compliance he was accustomed to getting within these walls.

“Whaaaat are you— _oh_. Seriously?” Galo sounded scandalized, but his expression said otherwise as he eagerly shifted around, legs splayed. “Should I—”

“No. You should shut up.”

“How do you know I wasn’t gonna say ‘Should I shut up’?”

Lio hooked his fingers under the stretchy hem of Galo’s pants, tugging down just enough that his cock peeked out from a thatch of curls, dusky and half-erect. “You’ve never _once_ shut up without being asked to. Or made to.”

Galo leered, brows waggling, and his cock firmed up a bit. “Well I hate to break it to you, but I am once again _not_ gonna shut up if you do what it looks like you’re about to do. And I think you know it.”

Lio did know it. So did all of Galo’s neighbors. “Well give it your best shot. But I’ll understand if you’re…overwhelmed.”

“Hell yeah. Whelm the fuck outta me.”

Lio’s Promare really did have the _worst_ taste in men. It wasn’t fair, sticking _that_ brain inside _that_ body. What would happen, Lio wondered, once his Promare was gone? He’d been so preoccupied with the perils his people would face, he hadn’t really let himself consider the very personal toll this mission might take on himself: would he cut ties with Galo altogether? That seemed rude; Galo had helped him, after a fashion, and he didn’t deserve to just be tossed aside. 

But they weren’t a good match anywhere but in bed. And Lio had responsibilities—responsibilities that would only balloon if he survived to see Pyropolis through to its new incarnation. True, Galo did have a knack for helping Lio relax, encouraging him to take things at a slower pace—but he didn’t seem to understand that wasn’t always possible. That sometimes Lio _needed_ the urgency. Thrived on it. Let it drive him. Galo was…

Galo was Galo. Kind and stupid and endearing and thoughtful. He deserved to be with someone who _wanted_ to be with him. Not someone who _had_ to be with him. 

But the time for such noble sacrifices had not yet come—Lio could still, for a bit longer, be the selfish prick Galo somehow enjoyed spending time with. And he would make it _well_ worth Galo’s effort in the doing. 

“You wanna do this in the bedroom?”

“I thought I told you to shut up?” Lio tucked his hair behind his ear with one hand, carefully pulling Galo’s cock free from its confines and curling his fingers around it to give it a gentle stroke so it could start plumping up properly. 

“Thought I told you that wasn’t gonna happen.” Galo’s breathing grew shallow, and he squirmed in his seat—he clearly wanted to thrust into Lio’s hand, but he couldn’t do so without toppling the stool. Which was precisely why Lio did _not_ want to do this in the bedroom. This was Lio’s home; they would fuck when and where Lio decided. If Galo wanted to hold him up as some all-powerful ruler of the settlement, then Lio would accept the mantle with grace.

He leaned over Galo’s crotch, breathing open-mouthed along the shaft of his cock. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d done this sort of thing to Galo before—it wasn’t an activity he took particular pleasure in, not physically. He didn’t even _really_ like having it done to himself, if he were being honest. It wasn’t that it wasn’t _pleasurable_ , far from it; it was simply…well, it felt a bit too _disconnected_. The more he did this sort of thing with Galo, the more he found himself longing for reassurance he was doing it with _Galo_. And it was difficult to remember that, was all, when your partner was little more than a head between your legs. 

His Promare really only cared about the connection it felt with another in moments like this, but Lio was human—Burnish, but human. Was it such a terrible thing if he indulged in the occasional _human_ emotion, inconvenient as they were at times?

Galo gave a hitched little yelp when Lio wrapped his lips around the bulbous crown of his cock, one hand reaching out to rest at the back of Lio’s head and massaging his scalp with the same rhythm he practiced to bob up and down along the shaft. Not forceful, not guiding, just _there_. Like he, too, wanted a reminder that Lio was more than just a head in his lap. Ridiculous, wonderful man. 

Lio drew up, far enough to purse his lips at the tip in a parody of a kiss before sliding back down, as much as he could handle. If Galo took offense at what he was certain was an only passable technique, he never said so, and his reactions filled Lio with warm, prideful ego. It was nice. Working hard and having his efforts appreciated. And Galo was _very_ appreciative, always.

“Shit…” he panted. “…I dunno…what I did to deserve this. But I promise to do it a _lot_ more.”

Lio pulled off to lave the thick shaft with the blade of his tongue, root to crown. “Who says you did anything to deserve it? Can’t I do it because I want to?”

Galo caught his eye, one brow quirked. “…You mean ‘cause your Promare wants to?”

Lio responded by firming his lips around the tip and giving a sharp suckle that sent a violent shudder through Galo. He buttoned up then—as best he could, at least, being Galo and unaccustomed to holding back—and let Lio finish his work. Lio rewarded him with no further teasing, his own cock reminding him with near-painful pulses that it would very much like to get involved in the festivities. But Lio ignored it, tamping down his urges and focusing himself wholly on Galo, on doing with him the sorts of things he would never have done with anyone else, on still being the _Lio_ he knew, in the midst of all this change.

He slipped one hand around Galo’s side, sliding up under his shirt and splaying his palm over the small of Galo’s back to hold him in place. Galo was leaned back against the island now, arms braced, and Lio could feel those hooded eyes boring into him from above, begging for release with labored huffs and strained grunts.

Lio’s jaw ached, and he drew nearly all the way off, up to the tip, continuing to work the shaft with his hand while he finished Galo off with tongue and lips (and just a tiny bit of teeth). It was messy, it was far from elegant, and it was uncomfortable—but Galo was a _sight_ like this, flushed and panting and just a bit demanding, so close to the edge. Lio didn’t dislike it, not at all. 

He sank down into a squat, at just enough of an angle he could continue working Galo’s cock while looking him in the eye. Galo locked gazes with him, pink tongue darting out to wet his barely parted lips—which then crooked up into a leer. Cocky jackass. 

Well, he would quickly wipe that smirk off his face. He traced the great vein on the underside of Galo’s cock with a finger, down to the gentle swell of his balls before dipping around behind, to the dark divot Lio could just reach from the angle at which Galo was seated. Galo tensed, likely bracing himself for intrusion, but Lio only traced his finger benignly around the tight little whorl of flesh. Even _with_ the protection of his Promare, further attentions would not feel nearly as pleasurable as they would with appropriate preparations, so Lio continued his teasing massage while suckling eagerly around as much of Galo’s cock as he could comfortably manage. 

Galo spread his legs even further, twitching on each pass of Lio’s finger and swipe of his tongue over the tip. He bit his lip, breath coming in great, panting grunts as his hips twitched and bucked. The fingers at the back of Lio’s head clutched at a great hank, holding on for dear life, and with his free hand, he gripped the edge of the countertop white-knuckled, the cords of his muscles standing out in stark definition. 

“Lio…” he mumbled pathetically, “L—Lio… _Lio_ …” and Lio’s own cock twitched in response, filling out his underpants as it plumped up. Unbidden, from the fingertip teasing Galo’s sensitive furl jumped a tiny little Promare spark, nipping the flesh. 

Galo seized—not from shock, as Lio thought, but from _arousal_ it turned out, hips snapping so sharply Lio nearly gagged on the cock promptly shoved down his throat. He jerked back, but not off, as with a grunt of completion, Galo spurted. Lio had intended to burn off the slick the instant it touched his tongue, as he typically preferred, but the unexpected arrival of Galo’s climax left him ill prepared, and he instinctively swallowed, taking two great gulps before his body recalled what _exactly_ it was guzzling and revolted. 

Lio drew off, hacking and coughing, and cleaned his mouth with a violent _huff_ that came out vibrant flames. He wiped at his lips, grimacing, and was convinced he could still _taste_ the bitter, viscous slick on his tongue. How Galo brought himself to swallow every bit whenever he went down on Lio was a mystery; the stuff tasted _terrible_. 

Galo, for his part, had practically collapsed against the counter, and after sending a gentle wave of Promare racing down his front to destroy any little drips or dribbles he’d hacked up in his spluttered surprise, Lio sidled back between Galo’s legs, leaning over him with his hands braced on either side of Galo. He cocked his head, one brow quirked. “Feeling ‘whelmed’ yet?”

Galo swallowed thickly, nodding. “Ooooohhh yeah. I think if you whelm me much more…it might just fall off.” 

“It would be a grand tragedy to lose such a magnificent specimen. I’ll have to remember to temper myself next time.”

“Oh don’t put yourself out on my account…” Galo’s gaze traveled down Lio’s body, resting at the fluttering hem of his shirt doing a poor job of covering the tent in his pants. “You want me to take care of that? I’m still a little woozy so gimme a couple minutes?”

“No need,” Lio said, carefully tucking Galo’s cock back into place. “I can handle it.” He took a step back and extended a hand to Galo. Galo frowned at him, and then at his hand, but tentatively took it, allowing himself to be pulled to very shaky feet. 

“…Well yeah, but half the fun is letting someone _else_ do the work.”

“This is _work_ to you?” Lio teased, leading Galo back to the staircase in the entryway and up, through the bedroom and into the half-finished bath. The toilets had never worked, but Burnish didn’t really need them. They didn’t need the showers either; Lio’s walk-in was pure indulgence. He somehow felt cleaner after a long shower using water stolen from a Promepolitan pipeline—and refreshed as well.

“Wha—of course not, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I do.” He left Galo to amuse himself by the double sinks, turning on the taps and warming the water pipes with his Promare for Galo’s sake. 

“You take showers here too?” Galo marveled, voice raised in an effort to be heard over the hiss of the running water. 

Lio peeled off his shirt, slipping his thumbs under the elastic band of his underpants to toe them off. “Not really. But you do.”

Galo lifted an arm and sniffed—then shrugged and began to disrobe. “You’re seriously not gonna let me suck you off?” He sounded almost hurt, and through the gathering steam beginning to cloud the room, Lio could see wounded offense writ large over his features.

“No, I’m not. We don’t have time,” Lio said, taking Galo by the wrist and guiding him into the stall. “You’re going to shower, and you’re going to be quick about it.”

“Me?” Galo frowned, ducking under the spray. “What’re you gonna do?”

“I’m going to watch. To make _sure_ you’re quick about it. I encourage you to be _very_ thorough in your scrub down.” Lio leaned back against the wall under the showerhead, admiring the way the spray struck Galo across the chest. “I’m going to be keeping a close eye on every inch of you.” He let one hand trail down his chest, tracing his navel and threading fingers through the short, thick thatch of curls around his cock. “Now snap to it. I won’t warm the pipes again should the water cool before you’re done.”

In the end, the water was freezing before they made it out of the shower stall—but wrapped in the warm, protective bubble of Lio’s Promare as their bodies slid together, neither of them noticed.

Lio left strict instructions with his generals to begin preparing the settlement for a life without their Promare to help protect them. Fortifying the walls and structures within them would be top priority, with issues of securing themselves and managing trade to follow after.

Lio’s heart had plummeted into his stomach when Meis had brought up the matter of arranging transportation, as the squads would no longer have their Burnish bikes to travel by, nor could trucks be constructed on demand from pure will. He was still coming to grips with the knowledge that losing his Promare would mean losing _everything_ he’d come to depend upon it for, and the desperate realization that there might come a time very soon when he would never sit upon Detroit again nearly had him instinctively constructing the bike in a panic, right there in the middle of his quarters.

He’d staved off the urge in the moment, but he’d wholly indulged in taking the scenic route back to Promepolis with Galo once he’d squared away Gueira and Meis for the afternoon. Galo hadn’t complained, only asking Lio if they might take a detour to a secluded iced-over lake up in the hills that Galo informed him was solid ice five meters down.

Eventually, though, they made their way, winding as it was, back to the Prometh Labs complex, receiving a far warmer welcome this time around than Lio had enjoyed on his last ‘visit’. Prometh himself had been thrilled, shaking Lio’s hand violently with professions of, “I knew it! I knew we could count on you! Ardebit, she wasn’t so sure. But me? I know a good apple when I see one. Oh, we’ll have to get a Promepedia page set up for you now!”

Lio was less interested in the contents of his forthcoming Promepedia page, though, than the _three months_ of training and preparation he learned he would have to look forward to. 

Going to the earth’s core, it turned out, was not quite as simple as it sounded. While Prometh and his people had been preparing for this moment for a couple of decades now, they’d lacked a key component—Lio—around which to bring all the pieces of their plan together. Now that Lio was on board—relatively speaking—the project could get going in earnest.

He sat through a crash course on the Prometech engine and its use in the field of disaster relief and learned everything he never wanted to know about Burning Rescue, from its founding shortly after the Great World Blaze through to its modern-day activities. Why any self-respecting Burnish would stoop to being little more than a living engine was beyond him—it came with next to no glory, and you were only ever going to be trotted out as ‘one of the good Burnish’. Someone earning their keep. Not like those _deviants_ out in the Waste, or the hoodlums who prowled back alleys and served as black-market firepower for the well-to-do. Life as a token was no life at all, something Lio still struggled to get Galo to understand. 

“We aren’t _engines_ ,” Remi scoffed, knocking back something that smelled strongly of cherry and directing a hand signal to Stub that Lio suspected amounted to _Five more of those_. 

“You’re kind of an engine,” Varys ribbed, inhaling an entire pizza slice in one go.

It was the fifth time Lio had joined Galo’s squad for their traditional third-Thursday outings at Stub’s. By this point, Lio had learned everyone’s name—including Stub, who owned the bar, and Rogelio, the young Burnish man who fired the ovens and was responsible for the scintillating scent the pizzas here gave off. Lio tried not to think overlong on how that sort of scent memory factored into Galo’s abject denial he had any sort of Burnish kink. His Promare’s infatuation aside, the _instant_ Galo whispered, “Oh _pizza_ …” in bed, this whole thing—the sex, the saving the planet, all of it—was _over_.

“All right, yes—when you get down to it, the Burnish partner _does_ function as the actual power source for our units. _True_. But—” Remi adjusted his glasses, tapping the table in front of Lio insistently. “It’s so much _more_ than that. It’s, well, a partnership.”

“He puts the gas in the tank, and I do the drivin’,” Varys grinned, just as Lucia cut in from another table over _Oh yeah, he gives everyone gas_.

Remi moved his seat around to sit closer to Lio, who had been perfectly content to quietly (and privately) nurse his virgin drink—he’d accepted that there was little point in ordering alcohol when you couldn’t appreciate it, especially since there was a very good chance Galo would be footing the tab yet again. He didn’t know what the thing was called, only that it involved some manner of soda and oranges and was about the most delicious thing Lio had enjoyed since he’d discovered coffee tasted better black. 

“Suit teams really only work when you’re _both_ working together. It’s not just you firing the core and them doing all the piloting. You have to be able to read them. To know when you need to put more power into the right arm, or divert your Promare to the legs. To know that sort of stuff before _they_ do, ideally. They can’t do their job without you, and you can’t do your job without them. It’s a team effort.”

“I don’t really do teams…” Lio said. He led—and he relied on his people for their support, to see his vision brought to life. But that wasn’t teamwork. Not like _this_ at least.

“Of course you do,” Remi said, giving him a funny look. “You’re human. We’re all wired to work with others—you may _prefer_ to work alone, but that’s neither here nor there.” He nodded at Galo, who was trying—and failing—to win an arm-wrestling match with Ignis, the squad captain. “And you have to be inclined to compromise to _some_ degree to spend as much time around Galo as you have been. He’s not an easy guy to work with.”

Indeed, he was not. Still, Lio didn’t see the allure. “Why this?”

“Hm?” Remi was distracted by Stub shuffling over with a platter full of the red drinks Remi favored. 

“What made you sign on for this?” Aina had her sister to blame, functioning largely as a liaison between Prometh Labs’ experimental tech department and Burning Rescue Squad 003, but Remi seemed at first blush to be perfectly unremarkable.

Remi carefully accepted the drinks from Stub with a winning smile. “The hazard pay is phenomenal,” he said with an easy shrug, before adding a bit more soberly, “…And it’s one of the few positions where we can really be ourselves.”

“Be yourselves? Burnish?”

Remi nodded, taking a careful sip. “Unless you’re like Rogelio back there and have a boss who’s understanding, even encouraging, it’s tough finding a line of work where you not only don’t have to hide, you can do some actual _good_ with your abilities. The work we do with Burning Rescue? It’s something _only_ Burnish can do—good work. Work we can be proud of. We’re setting a good example, too, so maybe it’ll ripple out, help people understand other Burnish better too.”

And there it was. Lio wrinkled his nose. “You shouldn’t have to be the figurehead of an entire community. There are plenty of places that would accept you just as you are. Where you wouldn’t have to ‘do some good’; you could just do _anything_ , and it would be enough.”

“Hmm,” Remi hummed, lifting one brow. “Like that settlement out by Mount Fennel?”

“…What do _you_ know about Pyropolis?” Lio made no secret of the fact he wasn’t Promepolitan, but he couldn’t stifle the urge to protect his home from the prying eyes of outsiders—even if those outsiders were Burnish themselves.

Remi slid one of the fresh drinks to Lio, and so as not to appear any more of a dick than these people already thought he was, Lio accepted. “Unclench. Aina’s mentioned it before—you guys aren’t exactly being subtle out there, and Prometh Labs has had tabs on that place since you started settling in. Hey—are those walls _actually_ constructs?”

“You’d better come armed with freeze missiles if you want to bust your way through _our_ border,” Lio said, unable to resist the urge to gloat.

“But how do you maintain them all the time? They’re _massive_. I’ve only ever made minor constructs, and I’m usually tapped for the afternoon by the effort. Seeing you pull up on that bike of yours every Trivia Night…” Remi shook his head with a low whistle. “I dunno how you do it.”

“You’re capable of far more than you realize,” Lio said, finding himself feeling an inexplicable surge of pity for Remi and the other Promepolitan Burnish. They truly didn’t understand what they were missing. They knew they were in a cage, or at least a pen—telling them where they were and weren’t welcome. But they didn’t get what those confines were _truly_ keeping them from experiencing. 

It made Lio want to snatch them all away, racing out over the Waste to shelter behind the tall, sturdy walls of Pyropolis. Walls that would, he had to remind himself at regular intervals, shortly fall and never be raised again.

Remi polished off his drink and reached for the next one in line. “…So what about you, then? No offense, but you and Galo…well, you don’t seem very well matched. Aina mentioned you and he were working together with Professor Prometh on some new prototype unit? Is it a numbers thing? Despite appearances, Galo _does_ have impressive simulator scores…” When Lio did not immediately explain—they weren’t strictly supposed to _discuss_ the mission; people did not tend to react well to the news their world might well be coming to an end—Remi made a soft _aah_ of understanding. “Though Aina doesn’t always see what’s right in front of her face, so I beg your pardon if I’ve overstepped any boundaries.”

Lio gave him a sidelong glance. “…You haven’t. And I suppose you both have the right of it, after a fashion.”

“…We _both_ do?” Remi pressed, seemingly curious despite himself. He shifted his stool even closer. “… _Really_? Galo?”

Two tables away, Galo was badly losing a hand of cards, shrieking in defeat and prostrating himself before the squad captain. “Really. Galo.” 

Remi waited for Lio to elaborate, and when no such elaboration was forthcoming, he sighed and shook his head. “I guess there’s someone for everyone.”

Lio thought about his Promare, which was being polite for a change and hadn’t—according to Remi and Aina—been unbearably prickly this evening. Someone for everyone there might be, but there was certainly no accounting for taste when it came to dimension-hopping pure-energy symbiotes. 

Lio’s chats with Remi and Aina over the weeks helped chip away at his discomfort with the very notion of Burnish and humans partnering in this manner, but only so much. He still, admittedly, did not see the draw. He felt more of a partnership with Galo when they wore nothing at all than when they donned drive suits and climbed into the training core, running simulation after simulation after simulation that left the both of them too exhausted to do much more in the evening beyond simply collapse into bed together, passing out the moment their heads hit their pillows.

The only silver lining, from Lio’s perspective, was that those pillows their heads were hitting were part of the mountain piled atop Lio’s old box spring in Pyropolis. The stress of training for this mission meant he was learning to relax elsewhere in his life, and one such area concerned his insistence on keeping the Galo business separate from his role in his community. He didn’t like it, would never have invited Galo to Pyropolis in the first place if he could have reasonably avoided it, but things were what they were, and if he could spend his evenings sating his Promare’s selfish needs from the comfort of his own bed, he supposed he could learn to deal with Galo slowly but surely worming his way even further into Lio’s private life. 

Pyropolis would, after all, not exist in its present state for much longer—provided all went according to plan—so he wanted to spend as much time with his people as he could, helping them prepare for the jarring transition they would shortly be faced with.

Galo predictably had no issue at all with the new arrangement, even going so far as to take leave from work so that he might wholly devote himself to training alongside Lio for the whole saving the planet business. Each morning they rose together, raced into the city atop Detroit, trained until they could barely stand, and raced back out through the Waste to the high, black walls of Pyropolis, catching just enough sleep to keep them going through the next day. 

It was an untenable situation, and while Lio’s Promare refreshed his battered, exhausted body, keeping him hale and whole and energized, Galo was running on reserves of which he had precious little to spare. 

“You’re worried about me?” Galo grinned when Lio expressed his concerns, their bodies entwined but with no energy to do more than simply hold one another, a different sort of connection but just as effective, Lio was learning. 

“There’s still time for you to back out, you know.”

“No there isn’t,” Galo reminded with a quirked brow, and Lio sighed.

“No, there isn’t.” He rolled onto his back, staring up into the darkness, and stretched his senses out. It was so quiet out here in the Waste. He’d only noticed now, after spending months trying to fall asleep in Galo’s apartment with the sounds of the great city-state, alive and kicking, puttering on just beyond the thin drywall surrounding them. 

He loved it here, he truly did. He might not like it quite as much once he was stranded, with no transportation and no shelter from the elements, without much in the way of indoor plumbing. But right now? He loved it. He loved it here, and it was that much _better_ with Galo drowsing alongside him, mumbling nonsense into his hair and trying to stay awake when he was rightfully exhausted.

His Promare pulsed, warm and content, from deep within his center. It had been doing that rather a lot lately: giving off a soft, steady rhythmic beat, not unlike a heart. It no longer raced, it no longer turned Lio inside out with irritation and need. It just _was_. Lio wondered if it knew, if it could feel the drop date racing closer with each passing day. Did it know that, not so very long from now, it would be separated from Galo forever? Did it care, or was this merely Lio’s subconscious churning up some _very_ unfortunate and inappropriate feelings and assigning them to an entity that could not possibly comprehend the concept of love or affection or companionship of any sort beyond the basic connections it sought with others?

Probably that, Lio decided.

Because Lio’s Promare was going home. It and its kin would be freed from their inconvenient bonds to entirely too-fragile human bodies, left to burn high and bright and fierce as they liked, until the heat death of the universe (if that even applied across dimensions). 

And Lio? Lio would be here. Alone. Not-King of a no-longer-Kingdom.

He burrowed closer to Galo, breathing him in and throwing one leg over. Unfortunate and inappropriate feelings, indeed.


	9. Chapter 9

Their training continued in this manner for several weeks, and while Lio worried that Galo’s distressingly human nature would be his undoing, eager though he might have been to tag along with Lio on this likely-suicide mission, the idiot proved that he did indeed have more brawn than brains and kept pace with Lio while displaying rather a lot more skill with his role than Lio might have given him credit for.

Galo had boasted that he had phenomenal simulator scores, and Lio was learning that this was not mere talk but astonishing _fact_. Even once they moved from the simulator pods to actual dummy Rescue Gear units meant to help new teams learn the ropes, Lio found that more often than not _he_ was the one dragging down their times and fucking up their numbers. Galo was every bit the pilot he had claimed, but Lio had never needed to learn to control his power with quite the fine precision required to function as a unit core. 

Never before had _he_ felt like the weakest link in a group—yet here he was, a drain on this partnership.

“What?” Galo laughed, his tone not entirely amused. “That’s ridiculous. You’re the whole reason this mission is happening in the first place.”

Lio picked at his pizza—takeout was never as good as fresh from the ovens in Stub’s kitchen, but they neither of them had the energy to spend on an evening out with the Louts, so they’d grabbed a couple of pies to go and were presently enjoying one each from the comfort of Lio’s pillow pit. “I’m the reason it quite probably won’t happen, you mean.” Now that he’d committed to this business, it was mortifying he hadn’t yet found his feet. He’d thought he was doing these Promepolitans a _favor_. Now, for all he knew, Prometh had holed himself up in his office, frantically going over sheets of data trying to find some other— _any_ other—Burnish they could draft for their needs.

And to Lio’s great shock, he _hated_ that.

Granted, such feelings likely stemmed from bruised pride rather than any sort of altruistic nature, but all the same. He didn’t want to fuck this up—if for no other reason than because his people were counting on him. _Galo_ was counting on him. He didn’t want to disappoint any of them.

“It’s gonna happen—I mean, it has to. So stop focusing on the fact that, okay yeah, you’re not picking up the cues for power diversion quite as quickly as some of our other recruits. But that’s why they’re recruits—because it comes naturally to them. Maybe it doesn’t come naturally to you, having to hold back and slow your release—”

“Never heard any complaints from _you_ …” Lio muttered, biting savagely into the last slice of pizza and incinerating the empty box. 

Galo crooked a grin at him, shuffling closer until their sides were shoved up together, and he ribbed Lio gently. “That’s cause I would never. But unfortunately, driving a Rescue Gear unit with a partner isn’t quite the same as bumping uglies.” 

Lio made a face at Galo’s crude turn of phrase. “It seems like it ought to be.”

Galo tapped his chin in thought. “…I guess maybe it is, then. For you especially.”

“Why for me especially?”

“Cause you don’t really wanna do either.” Galo kept his features passive, and no matter how Lio scrutinized him, searching for hidden barbs and accusation, he could not find any. 

Lio drew his knees to his chest. “…Well, I have to. Both things. And I’ve accepted that and made the best of the situation I could.” He cut a frown at Galo. “Like I said, I haven’t heard any complaints from _you_.”

“And like _I_ said: ‘cause I’ve got nothing to complain about.”

Lio wrinkled his nose. “I’ll bet you’d rather I learned how much hydraulic power you like in a forward lunge.”

“Nah. That’d help the mission, maybe. But I’d be content if I knew you were at least enjoying yourself.”

“Difficult to enjoy oneself when nothing’s going right.”

“Are you kidding? Screwing up’s when I have the most fun in some cases!”

Lio had to laugh at that, a soft huffy thing, because Galo was just that ridiculous—and endearingly so. “That I can believe.”

Galo slid down onto his back, then rolled onto one side, head propped up in one hand, to stare up at Lio. “…We’re a good team, you and me. Whatever we do. We click.”

Lio rolled his eyes. “My _Promare_ —”

“Are you ever gonna stop blaming that thing for everything you don’t like in your life? And even some of the stuff you do, just because you feel like you aren’t allowed to?”

It was an unusually shrewd comment from Galo, and though he said it in as light a tone as ever, it still cut Lio distressingly keenly, and he had to swallow hard around the last bite of his pizza, nearly choking on the thick crust. “I _beg_ your pardon?”

“You talk about making the best of a bad situation. But you’re so stuck on the ‘bad situation’ part of it you don’t really let yourself enjoy the ‘making the best’ part.” He slid back down, head pillowed in what Lio thought might have been a couch cushion at one point, motheaten and deflated in the middle. “I like you, Lio. I like what we do— _really_ like it.” Lio could feel his cheeks prickling as a flush crept up from his neck and attacked his ears. “And once you started allowing yourself to like it too, it got even _more_ fun.” He reached out and poked Lio’s knee. “So I’m willing to bet if you let yourself have a little fun piloting with me, we’d get our mojo back.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t know what ‘mojo’ is.”

Galo rolled his eyes. “When you stop _trying_ so hard, and just let it happen…you’ll see you’re a natural. That _we’re_ natural.” He gave a great, huffing sigh, punching the defenseless cushion under his head to try and fluff it. “…Kinda makes me wonder.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

“I mean, if we could’ve been _actual_ Burning Rescue partners, don’t you think that would’ve been awesome? With your power, and my piloting…there wouldn’t be a natural disaster or industrial accident or bank robbery that could’ve stood in our way.”

Lio did not, actually, think it would have been awesome, but he let Galo ramble on, loath to trample upon his imagined what-might-have-been. 

“You’ve got so much raw power, everyone would’ve been lining up to team up with you, but you’re kind of snooty, so even then I don’t think you’d let just _anyone_ be your pilot.”

“Except for you, of course,” Lio drawled, amused despite himself.

“Well _duh_. Because my scores are the best, and you’d only want to partner with the best. And Sparky likes me.”

“Hah.” Lio held up a finger. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but you’ve forgotten something in this daydream of yours.”

“It’s night, but I’ll allow it.”

Lio slid down beside Galo, pillowing his head on one of Galo’s biceps. It was far from comfortable, but Galo seemed to like it, unfolding his arms so he could slip one around Lio’s shoulder to draw him even closer. “The only reason I hopped on Detroit and went out scouring the Waste for a quick lay was because my living in Pyropolis as part of a colony awoke the Promare’s need to bond. Solo Burnish don’t generally have to deal with that sort of thing. So no, in this far-fetched fantasy you’re mooning over, my Promare would _not_ like you.”

“No?” Galo lifted a brow in challenge. “I bet I could woo it.”

“It doesn’t have a brain; it can’t be _wooed_.”

“You tell me I don’t have a brain all the time, yet here we are.”

Lio promptly pulled the sparks from the lamps around the room back into himself, plunging them into darkness before Galo could question the rising flush to his cheeks. “…Whatever your reasoning, the fact of the matter is: this would never have happened if life had panned out as it does in your wildest fantasies.”

“You think this is my _wildest_ fantasy? Whoo boy, do I have news for you…” He then got dangerously quiet, and when he spoke again, his voice was soft, and right by Lio’s ear. “…You sound like you’re trying to talk me out of it.”

“Only trying to get you to see reason. No point dwelling on what-ifs. Life is what it is, and there’s no changing it. Be satisfied with what you have.”

“Oh—hey.” Galo sounded immediately contrite, and Lio cursed his sharp tongue; it wasn’t this idiot’s fault his emotions were all over the place as the drop date approached. “I didn’t mean I wasn’t satisf—I was just _saying_ …” He sighed, head falling softly against Lio’s. “I told you. I like you. And you never know.”

“…Never know?”

“You never know. We might’ve still gotten together. In fact, I bet we _would_ have. Horny Promare or no.” Around a yawn, he added with finality, “We’re soulmates, after all.”

* * *

He didn’t want to think Galo’s trite little pep talk had done any good, but Lio still found himself, over the next couple of weeks, actually trying to focus less on the mission and more on how it _felt_ , being one with Galo in a context entirely removed from their bedrooms. 

Convinced the stress and strain of having to ‘perform’ for Prometh and his lackeys were underlying Lio’s inability to manage, Galo obtained permission to take one of the dummy units to an obstacle course outside the city limits where rookie teams trained for field work—far from the eyes of any grizzled Promepolitans who might frown at Lio’s disappointing scores and dismal reaction times. It was mortifying, having to be coddled so, but Galo had just shrugged and said, “We were all newbies at one point. Now get your ass in the pod and gimme some juice.”

And to Lio’s great shock, the ridiculous tactic _worked_. When it truly _was_ just himself and Galo, with no one else around for miles, no one shouting his numbers back at him or calling for adjustments to the energy output instead of letting Lio modulate it himself, they eventually found…well, a sort of balance. A give and take that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. Lio wouldn’t go so far as to say it was _fun_ —but it was…well, it was certainly more enjoyable finally managing to take a few good steps without faceplanting than otherwise. 

And after those first few tottering steps came more, until they were moving in sync more often than not, navigating each segment of the obstacle course at a snail’s pace, admittedly, but definitely _navigating_ at least. Over the course of a week, their movements went from ‘drunken trio of raccoons in a trenchcoat’ to something actually resembling a _team_ , until nine days later, they had finally made it through the entire course in under ten minutes.

“Granted, they won’t even let you _look_ at an actual Rescue Gear unit until you can make the course in three minutes, but we’ll get there soon enough,” Galo called out over the hiss of his shower. They’d returned to Promepolis for their biweekly visit to Galo’s apartment to gather his mail and make sure his landlord hadn’t rented out his apartment in his absence, and Galo had taken the opportunity to beg to use his own shower for once: _“It’s not like I don’t appreciate the Pyropolis amenities, but I do like being able to have more than five minutes’ worth of hot water.”_

Lio leaned against the wall near the shower door, peeking through the translucent glass at Galo’s shadow moving just beyond. “We may not have time for ‘soon’. Prometh showed us those new datasets just last week that said we could be a handful of monthsaway from the point of no return.”

“Then we’ll train harder,” Galo said, voice clearer as the water was abruptly cut by the sharp _squeak_ of a handle being turned. He yanked on the door, strolling out boldly nude and dripping wet to dig through his cupboard for a fresh towel. Lio reminded himself it was rude to stare, and even if Galo didn’t mind it—he didn’t, he _definitely_ didn’t—Lio certainly preferred his own mountain of pillows to the understuffed mattress-on-the-ground Galo called a bed for any amorous activities, so he wasn’t of a mind to start anything until they’d safely passed the checkpoint at Pyropolis’s gates.

“We train our asses off daily _already_ ,” he groused, frowning down at the grimy tile beneath his feet and resisting the urge to scour Galo’s entire bathroom clear of mold and dirt with an exasperated burst of Promare. “We can’t afford baby steps—we need gigantic fucking leaps if we’re going to make Prometh’s timeline.”

“You sound worried,” Galo said, voice muffled as he pulled on a tee. 

“Of course I sound worried. I _am_ worried.” He wrinkled his nose at the shirt—on which was emblazoned _HUNKA HUNKA BURNING SOUL_ in big, bold letters. “I’ll never understand why you _aren’t_ worried.”

“I’m actually kinda touched you don’t understand why and haven’t just assumed it’s cause I’m too stupid to get what’s going on.”

Something shifted in Lio’s chest—because he hadn’t assumed that at all, but by all rights, he _should_ have. Shouldn’t he? God, was he actually starting to give Galo _credit_? He shrugged shortly. “Prometh’s telling us the sky is falling. It’s a simple enough concept. Certainly isn’t anything as complicated as, oh I don’t know, basic spelling.”

Galo colored. “There’s no ‘ _D’_ sound in the middle of _Wednesday_ , so I don’t see where the fuck that spelling came from.”

Lio felt a reluctant smile tug at his lips, lapsing into memory. “It wasn’t that you got it wrong. It was how very confident you were you had it _right_.” Outings with the Louts were, he had to admit, actually fun, in their own way. It was difficult to just be _Lio_ around Gueira and Meis—there was history there, and ranks that placed walls stronger than any construct between Lio and his people. But Varys ruffled his hair and gave him painfully affectionate slaps on the back, and Lucia would let him sample alcoholic concoctions she was working on in an effort to let Burnish get themselves drunk, and even Aina and Remi, who he’d once derided as _domesticated_ , showed him the sort of life he might have enjoyed had things gone just a little bit different. He didn’t regret anything, no, but…Galo wasn’t the only one who wondered, sometimes.

He liked these people. He liked Galo. And every time he stepped into that pod and took his position, it felt, just a little bit, like he was still only pretending. He was an interloper, only here for _this_ , and once this was over, he’d either be dead—they all would be—or he’d be back in Pyropolis, trying to rebuild the life he’d once thought everything he could ever want. 

“Hey,” Galo said, from right in front of Lio, close enough he filled Lio’s vision. “Where’d you go?”

Lio took a step back, pressing himself up against Galo’s old washer/dryer, full of wrinkled laundry he hadn’t bothered to put away. “…Nowhere. I’m here, obviously.”

“Maybe physically. Not mentally.”

Lio looked away—back down the short little hallway to the kitchen, and its doorway to freedom. “…Finish getting ready. It’s a long ride back to Pyropolis.”

“We could stay here tonight.”

They could. There was absolutely nothing stopping them. Gueira and Meis had learned by now that Lio could be trusted to handle himself outside the city, even amongst Promepolitans. And he’d spent his fair share of nights here already.

But an insidious little voice was hissing in his ear: best start snipping away those lovely red threads now, before you get too entangled.

“You’re welcome to stay, if you’d rather. But I feel it best for me to spend as much time in Pyropolis helping my people prepare for what’s to come—even if all I do is share a communal breakfast table with them come morning.”

Galo sighed, shoulders slumping, but he wore a wry, sad smile on his lips that said he wasn’t entirely disappointed. “…They’re really lucky to have you, you know. Makes a guy wish he didn’t have to share you.” He reached past Lio, fishing through the washer/dryer for a fresh (relatively speaking) pair of pants. “Gimme five minutes and then we can hit the road.”

Lio frowned. “…You’re coming?”

Galo shrugged. “If you’ll let me? I’m just tired is all. I didn’t want to have to trek all the way out across the Waste tonight if we didn’t have to. Plus…well.”

“Well?”

“Like I said: Makes a guy wish he didn’t have to share you.”

“I feel—” Lio said, searching for an explanation. “Responsible. I feel like I owe it to them. To be there, as much as possible, if this is to be the end of it all. Or the beginning. Or whatever it’s meant to be.”

Galo nodded, tugging on his pants with an amused huff. “I’m not giving you grief, relax. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

Except he _did_. Because he’d been working, very hard, on not being such a dick, horny or otherwise. “…I do want you to come back with me.”

Galo’s lips curled up a tick. “…Good. Glad we’re on the same page.” 

Lio didn’t think they were, actually, but he let it go. “…I don’t feel ready. For any of this. Somehow the more we train, the less prepared I feel. Like I finally have enough understanding of what we’re doing…to tell I don’t have the faintest _idea_ what we’re doing.”

Galo had the gall to laugh. “Yeah. I think that was me my first…six months of training?” He shrugged. “I’ve been prepping for this for over three years. Prometh’s been at it for over twenty. Cut yourself some slack. You’ll get it. Look how far we’ve come since we started doing the solo training.” And he had something of a point. That they could walk ten feet in the unit was a miracle in and of itself. “I’d say you’re _just_ about ready to remind Prometh why he spent so long looking for you.”

“…I suppose that’s one of us that feels that way.”

Galo crossed his arms over his chest, frowning down at Lio. “…You’re in a mood tonight.”

Lio felt his temper flare. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

“I mean, you’re always pretty low-key as it is, but usually you’re…I dunno. Cockier. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you _mope_.” He reached over to flick Lio between his brows.

Lio slapped his hand away in irritation. “I’m not _moping_. I’m acting quite reasonably given the weight of the task on my shoulders. It’s rather a lot of pressure, if you haven’t noticed.”

“No duh. It’s hard _not_ to notice. You just always seemed so…collected.” He squinted. “You seem more human now. I like it.”

“You _like_ seeing me unsettled?”

“Is that what this is? Then I guess so, yeah.” He shifted around to lean up against the washer/dryer alongside Lio. “It’s tough not to be at least a little bit intimidated by you. Especially after seeing the way your people look up to you. They trust that you’ll get the job done.”

“If you think this is doing _anything_ to relieve the pressure on me— _ow_.”

Galo managed to flick him between the brows before Lio could counter this time. “That doesn’t mean they think you don’t get scared, or worried, or anything like that—it just means they’ve got faith you’ll push through it. You’re doing something you’ve never been asked to do before. You’re allowed to fuck up a few times along the way—I certainly have. If you’d seen me piloting one of these dummy suits for the first time with Aina back when I was a fresh recruit, you’d be feeling a hell of a lot better about your progress so far.”

Lio frowned at the implication. “…You paired with Aina?”

“She’s kind of like the go-to Burnish for new pilots to do pair attempts with. Breaks everyone in before they go on to get their formal partners. She’s really good at controlling her Promare…” Galo tapped on his chin in thought. “I wonder if we should ask her to give you some pointers.”

Lio had never wanted pointers less from anyone in his life in that moment, and he could feel his Promare lashing fitfully. “…I can manage on my own.”

“Oh-hoh? What’s this? Where’d this confidence come from all of a sudden?” And to Lio’s great dismay, Galo demonstrated a distressing display of insight. “Hold up, are you _jealous_ I piloted for Aina first? At a point that would’ve been, let’s be clear, like _three years_ before I ever even met you?”

“Where did you get I was _jealous_?”

“Maybe from the fact that as soon as I mentioned Aina, suddenly you’re all _I can manage on my own_? And _don’t_ try and convince me it’s ‘cause you don’t like her—you and her were best buds at the last Trivia Night, wiping the floor with the entire rest of the squad just the two of you.”

“Not everything’s about _you_ —”

“Who said it was about me? I assumed you had a crush on Aina.” Lio gave him a shrewd look, and Galo laughed. “Okay. You got me.” He sighed and shook his head fondly. “…What do I have to do to get through to you, huh?”

“…Get through to me how?”

“…Nah, ‘s nothing.” He swiped a pair of socks from the washer/dryer, then inclined his head back toward the entrance. “You ready to head out?”

“I’ve been ready since we walked through the door.”

“Touchy touchy…” Galo hopped down the hall on one foot behind Lio, pulling on his socks as he went. “Aina was a great partner,” he said.

Lio’s shoulders tensed, and he swallowed to ensure his voice didn’t crack. “I’m sure she was fantastic. Put on your shoes.”

“She was. Gave me pointers, even though she wasn’t a pilot herself. Never let me get in over my head as far as power output went, even when I whined for it. She knew how to keep a rookie pilot in line, and she could’ve had any pilot she wanted.”

“Good for her,” Lio said, tone clipped. His Promare wasn’t enjoying listening to Galo reminisce any more than Lio was, and the joint onslaught of self and non-self emotions was wreaking havoc on Lio’s composure. 

“She was a great partner,” Galo said again, then laid a hand on Lio’s shoulder, applying force until he’d pushed Lio around, to press his back against the front door. He stepped in close, form backlit by the buzzing fluorescent lamp overhead and casting his shadow wholly over Lio. “But she wasn’t who I wanted. I could’ve had anyone, remember that. I could’ve had _anyone_. And I chose you. I wanted you. I wanted you before I knew you even existed, because you’re they only one who would’ve ever been good enough for me. So get your shit together, stop feeling sorry for yourself or whatever this weird mood is and be Lio Fucking Fotia. The conceited dick who had big-enough balls to corner me in a dirty toilet and solicit me for sex before we’d even exchanged names.”

Lio swallowed, throat suddenly parched. “I don’t feel sorry for myself.”

“Good. You shouldn’t. You’re doing amazing—and this is coming from me, who’s piloted with Aina, who as I said, was a great partner. You’re powerful as shit, you command a whole room just by walking in, you’re the kind of person who makes everyone sit up and take notice. But if you want a general—then go back to Pyropolis and get one. I’m not Gueira, and I’m not Meis. I’m not gonna fawn on you. I’m not gonna kiss your ass—unless you ask nicely, because Gueira mentioned something about how clean Burnish assholes are supposed to be? Whatever. The point is I’m not gonna accept your bullshit excuses. I’m pretty sure you know that. So when I talk you up, know it’s cause I really, _truly_ believe in you.”

“…I don’t want a general,” Lio said, feeling suddenly contrary and like he had to claw back some measure of power, because this conversation had turned _abruptly_ one-sided. “I never even _implied_ as such. If you think I want _that_ from you, you’ve sorely misinterpreted our relationship.”

“Fine,” Galo said with a firm nod. “What _do_ you want from me?”

Lio’s mouth opened and closed a few times as he groped for words. When they came, they were inelegant and blunt: “Just you. Being you. I don’t—” He sighed, ducked his head, and looked away, unable to bear the full force of Galo’s open, honest gaze. “I don’t need _pep talks_. I don’t need you talking me up. I just—need you to be there, waiting. And…and I’ll find my way to you as soon as I possibly can.”

“…All right,” Galo said, taking a step back so Lio could finally breathe again. “I’ll wait for you. And I won’t talk you up. But you can’t stop me _thinking_ it.”

No, he couldn’t. So he wouldn’t try. “Just put your shoes on and let’s go,” he said, bringing a hand to his cheeks. He thought they felt warm, but it was really impossible to tell. 

Lio kept Galo’s promise to wait for him snug in the back of his mind, sitting there at the end of every thought in silent reminder of the goal he was working towards. He was realizing now that the pressure to ‘save the world’ was entirely too much for one man to bear—so why bother? No, Lio would simply get to where Galo was, be a partner worthy of this ridiculously charming idiot, and that would be enough. Don’t focus on running; focus on standing on your own two feet—and then let the rest come as it would.

The part of Lio that was still a little bit wild balked at having patience forced upon him, feeling constrained and coddled, but the part that had a modicum more maturity knew that if he pushed himself too far now, he’s _never_ get the hang of this business, and then the earth truly _would_ be fucked.

With Galo’s constant stream of adulation and encouragement finally quieted enough Lio could hear his own thoughts and get his mind in order while they worked, their training days began to go a bit more smoothly. Not _smooth_ exactly, but smooth _er_ at least. They ran through the obstacle course so many times Lio had Galo’s cues memorized, pushing and pulling on the infinite well of energy dwelling at the center of his being to give Galo just the _umph_ he needed.

When they finally managed to run the course nearly at regulation speed, Galo rearranged the obstacles and had them run it _again_. Back to square one they went, with Lio realizing his reactions had largely been grounded in memorization of Galo’s cues rather than actually learning to read his partner. But he caught on quicker this time, until they’d made more progress in under a week than they had in the last three. 

A third round of switching up the obstacle course proved much less challenging to master than the first two layouts, and Lio finally began to feel like he was driving his energy output based on _Galo_ rather than his own sense of the course. Galo liked to take inclines at a run on the way up while jumping back down to earth, which meant Lio needed to tailor the output to both legs to maintain balance when they hit the asphalt. Galo preferred a certain rhythm on the bars, not too fast, not too slow, and Lio had it committed to heart by now, breathing in time as they swung along. Galo didn’t hesitate on the climbing wall, so Lio needed to be ready to pour juice into all four limbs, or else they were going to miss a grip and go tumbling end over head. 

And Galo was patient the whole while. He let Lio lead, let Lio say when they were done, let Lio say when they _weren’t_ done. He piloted as if Lio were any seasoned Burnish on the Burning Rescue squad, never chiding, never complaining, and though Lio privately missed the way he’d celebrate when they achieved a new best time or shower Lio with praise for being a _fucking mindreader_ when he put just the right touch of energy into a feverish fist-pump of elation, he made himself step back, swallow down the urge, and _focus_. There would be time for frivolity later. For now…

Well, for now: they needed to run this standard course under a lab tech’s watchful eye and prove to Prometh he hadn’t spent twenty-odd years waiting in vain.

“I know I’m not supposed to encourage you or gas you up or anything,” Galo said as they waited for the start signal, “But you’re here. We’re here.”

Lio took a long, deep inhalation—then exhaled slowly, eyes closed as he centered himself. A buzzer sounded, marking ten seconds to start. “…No I’m not,” he said. And then, before Galo could object, he added, “But I’m coming, if you’ll wait for me.”

Galo gave him a bright, challenging grin. “When have I not been ready to wait for you?”

Lio nodded. “I’ll see you there in three minutes. Or less, if we’re having a good day.”

“Oh, we’re gonna have a fan-fucking- _tastic_ day, I can feel it.” And given he wasn’t talking Lio up _directly_ , he let it go.

In the end, it was a fan-fucking-tastic day indeed, to the tune of two minutes and forty-seven seconds. Their best time yet, on a course they’d never run. Lio thought he might just combust, his Promare going supernova with the heady combination of relief and ecstasy and pride in his achievement. 

He would’ve liked to have seen Aina do _that_.

Predictably, Prometh and Ardebit were not satisfied with one measly good run, because of _course_ they weren’t. They wanted to see results, and then they wanted to see those results again, and then _again_. They wanted to see those results replicated over a full week, until finally, when Lio felt wholly wrung out and Galo didn’t look much better, they were given a passing grade.

“You had me worried there for a bit, boy!” Prometh had chuckled nervously, bristly mustache fluttering, and Lio didn’t say _I had myself worried there for a bit too_ , because there was no point. Worrying, he was learning, only distracted from the important business of _doing_. He wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. Not now he was finally here, with Galo, where he could honestly say it felt like he _belonged_.

Or maybe that was just his Promare, delighted to have found a new level on which to connect with Galo. 

Whatever the source of his newfound confidence and surety, Lio appreciated it, for no matter how hard the days were, with Prometh putting them through new simulations as a pair and running them ragged, Lio always ended them feeling fulfilled. Exhausted, but fulfilled. He enjoyed the training rather a lot more now that he felt he was up to the tasks being asked of him, and he had to admit that, on some level, it was—well—a _tiny_ bit fun, too.

“What’s that smile for?” Galo asked, a little bit curious, a little bit wary, as they waited in the briefing room for Prometh and Ardebit to prep them on the day’s training regimen. He slumped forward over the table, across from Lio, chin propped up in one hand.

“What smile?” Lio asked, all innocence, and he forced his lips purposefully down.

“The one you’re trying to pretend you’re not wearing. Do I have something on my face?” He wrinkled his nose, running a tongue over his teeth. “Pube in my teeth?”

“Oh don’t be _ridiculous_ ,” Lio huffed, leaning back in his chair and silently begging Prometh to hobble their way faster. Galo tended to be in unusually good spirits in the mornings these days, which more often than not led to lewd commentary—something Lio tended not to appreciate quite as much when it would be ten to twelve hours before he could act on said commentary. “Just relieved to be _finished_ with all this preliminary training. Thought I was going to be stuck playing battery while you run obstacle courses until the core explodes.”

“See? Told you you’d get it. Maybe have a little faith in me next time.” He lit up. “Ooh, does this mean I get to talk you up again?”

“I’d rather you didn’t…” 

“I didn’t hear ‘no’!”

Lio opened his mouth to explain the importance of _listening_ to your partner’s intent instead of letting the instructions go in one ear and out the other, when Prometh finally dragged himself through the door with a blustery _Morning, morning_ , Ardebit trailing meekly behind him, her fingers flying over a tablet.

Galo clapped his hands together, then rubbed his palms eagerly. “So, what’s next on the agenda, Doc? Gonna make us spend _another_ day sitting in that dummy cockpit until our asses go numb?”

“No no, I think we’re done with the dummy units now—time to get you up to speed with the layout and controls of an actual Deus pod!”

Lio frowned. “How does the Deus pod differ from the unit we’ve been piloting?”

“The dummy units are mostly just scaled down, neutered versions of the actual Rescue Gear units—a one-to-one mapping of the controls that allows trainees to get up to speed on a relatively disposable unit before they’re set loose in the field,” Galo said, and Prometh nodded.

“Quite right. The Deus pod…well, it’s rather a bit more complicated, so Thymos—you’ll be shadowing Ardebit today while she walks you through the control panel and manipulators.”

Lio didn’t like the sound of that—especially since it meant Lio was probably going to be put to uses he wasn’t comfortable with.

Uses like, as it turned out, charging the Deus pod’s capacitors. 

_“You’ll need help getting back to the surface, of course,”_ Prometh explained over the comms as Lio climbed into the stark interior of the Deus pod. _“We’ll strap Absolute Freezing Charges to the hull to keep the two of you from being boiled alive by the heat of the planet’s core after you’ve released your Promare and closed the dimensional rift, but there’s still the matter of returning to the surface. These ring capacitors are designed to collect any energy you funnel into them and recycle it into thrust to help you get back to the surface once the job’s finished.”_

A thought occurred now to Lio as he began to strap himself into his bucket seat. “These freeze charges—they won’t activate until _after_ we’ve reached the core?”

_“After you’ve reached it and released your Promare, yes—you’ll need artificial temperature-regulating mechanisms then, I’m afraid!”_

Artificial? “You mean to say we’re expected to travel all the way to the core—from the surface— _without_ using the charges? I’m sure I can withstand the heat—but Galo certainly can’t.”

Prometh gave a sharp _pssh_ over the comms. _“Well of course_ you’ll _be responsible for the care and maintenance of the unit’s integrity—and those inside it—until you reach the core, boy! Without the protection of your Burnish armor, the Deus X Machina would be—”_

“Without my— _what_?”

_“—destroyed before it even breached Fennel’s main feeder tube! And you might be able to survive the heat of the magma, certainly, but only as long as you could hold your breath, hoho! Meanwhile, your partner over there would be reduced to ash before he could get within five feet of a floe.”_

“Wait— _wait_. Go back. The protection of my _what_?”

_“Your Burnish armor, boy—keep up. You know as well as I there’s no material, man-made or otherwise, that’s as sturdy in the face of overwhelming heat and pressure as Burnish armor, so we’ll be relying on you to make a suitable construct that will keep the both of you cool and cozy until you finish your journey. The freeze charges will handle the return trip.”_

Burnish armor. Lio slumped back, limp, in his seat, releasing the grip he’d taken on the conduit shafts and bringing his hands to his face, groaning long and loud. “…I can’t make _armor_ …” he muttered to himself.

_“What was that? Speak up, into the microphone! Have you got a headset? Can we get him a headset? The microphone doesn’t seem to be functioning—”_

Why hadn’t Prometh told him this from the _outset_? Lio didn’t know a single Burnish personally who could construct armor. Those sorts of techniques had been lost to time, no one having had any real use for the imposing full-body armor casing that molded itself to the caster since those first chaotic few years after the Great World Blaze. From what he’d heard tell, the armor constructs were _ever_ so much more complicated than simple walls or shields, or even the transports like Detroit used to travel the Waste. 

_Fuck_. 

He slammed a fist on the release module, and the hatch popped open as Lio hauled himself from the Deus pod to the flustered confusion of the techs looking on and Prometh blustering over a loudspeaker that echoed around the room, _“Where do you think you’re going?! We haven’t even begun!”_

“Lunch break,” Lio growled, glaring down a couple of techs who looked very much like they wanted to escort him back into position. There was no rush to learn his way around the Deus pod _now_ , after all, so he figured he might as well saunter down to the mess and see what the canteen was serving today.

“But—wait, what do you _mean_ you can’t construct armor?” Ardebit gasped, nearly crushing her tablet to her chest.

Lio took a calm sip of his soda—god, he hadn’t had anything carbonated in _years_ , and this was his third one this week. The lovely way the fizz hit his throat, like swallowing little supernovas—he’d _missed this_. The first opportunity he could find, he’d get Pyropolis its very first vending machine. His people deserved to taste the finer things in life again before the planet exploded, after all.

The four of them—Lio, joined by a prickly, pissed-off Prometh, a very confused Ardebit, and Galo, who had loaded down his own lunch tray with all three of the day’s specials—were huddled around a table in a corner of the canteen while Lio picked over a wilted salad and strongly considered stealing whatever was on the middle plate on Galo’s tray. It looked red and smelled spicy—Lio’s mouth was already watering and regretting not going for it himself. Just because he had access to healthier options than thirty-year-old trail mix and instant noodles didn’t mean he had to _entirely_ forgo the odd treat now and then.

“I feel I explained it rather succinctly and straightforwardly,” Lio said. “I can’t do it. And I don’t know anyone who can.”

“Preposterous!” Prometh scoffed, stamping his cane on the tile floor. “We’ve got _hours_ of footage of Burnish subjects cladding themselves in personal protective constructs. Ardebit, pull up the Promepedia page!” Ardebit’s fingers flew over the tablet, almost too quickly to make out, and Prometh continued on. “Time is ticking down, as you well know, but if you boys need to take more leave to work on a proper construct for the unit, then—”

“This isn’t something you can just work hard at, and then—” He snapped his fingers, “—suddenly everything suddenly clicks, and there you have your construct. No; I could concentrate from now ‘til kingdom come and it wouldn’t make any difference. That sort of technique’s long been lost.”

Ardebit gave a soft _Ah!_ and flipped the tablet around, running her finger over a large triangular button to trigger a video to play. Lio watched, bored, while Galo leaned into him with rapt attention fixed on the screen. The video was grainy with age and skipped a few times, and whoever had been running the camera didn’t appear to know what they were doing, the angle cocked the entire time. 

Its poor quality aside, though, the video showed in living color a Burnish man nodding to a tech in a lab coat once before taking a deep breath—and then crafting a construct that coiled around his entire body, like a great black snake with a jeweled hide flashing in the harsh artificial lighting. The construct expanded on itself, flowing over the man’s body before carefully notching itself together like a collection of odd puzzle pieces, finishing off with a helmet fitting itself over his head, wearing a disturbing sharp-toothed smile of a mask. 

Lio shuddered. “Why on earth would I even _want_ to construct something like that, if I could? That’s nightmare fuel, right there.”

“You must!” Prometh snapped, slapping the table. “Or else the Deus X Machina, and all within it, will be destroyed before you can even break through the crust. The carbide coating on the unit will protect you to some degree, but it’s relatively fragile and meant more for _insulation_ , not direct exposure to the stresses of burrowing to the core!”

“So slap on a few more of those freeze charges we’re supposed to use on the return trip.”

“ _Slap on a few—_ ” Prometh started, voice going high, and Ardebit placed a hand on his arm, hissing softly _Professor, your blood pressure_.

Prometh shrugged her away, and she shut off her tablet and turned to face Lio and Galo with a grim frown. “That’s just not feasible. The unit will barely stand the strain of using the charges to stave off the intense heat and pressure _one_ way—to do so twice would be impossible. Not to mention they’ll interfere with your tracking and targeting, something that’s much less important when you’re trying to rise back to the surface than when you’re trying to dig down to the core.” She shook her head. “Having you construct the outer shell of Burnish armor yourself is really the only way to go about this.”

“And as I said,” Lio bit out, shoving his plate away. “It’s _not happening_. No matter how you may deem it necessary, the fact is I can’t do it!”

“Can’t you?” Prometh asked, challenging. “Or have you just never _tried_? Because a matter of weeks ago, you couldn’t power a unit with a pilot partner—and yet here you are.”

“He’s got a point,” Galo said, unhelpfully. “Is it a concentration thing? Aina and Remi always said making even tiny constructs sapped them. Is that the deal? The mental gymnastics of having to keep a construct going while moving around and doing stuff?” He directed his questions half to Lio, and half to Ardebit, which somehow frustrated Lio even _more_ than he already was; this was _his_ Promare they were discussing, and Ardebit wasn’t even Burnish.

“I—yes, that is, at least as I understand it, part of the problem. Shaping the Promare into solid constructs takes a great deal of concentration. For Burnish not accustomed to making constructs, it’s an extremely difficult, if not impossible, task.”

“But Lio makes constructs all the time. He pulls Detroit outta thin air on the daily,” Galo argued, brows beetling in confusion as he carried on the conversation as if Lio weren’t sitting right next to him. “And that thing’s _way_ more complex than a suit of armor would be, it sounds like.”

Ardebit cocked her head in confusion “I—‘Detroit’?”

“His bike. Burnish cycle. Burcycle, if you will.”

She blinked, processing the name, then dismissed it. “Well, it may seem as such, but in truth, it’s no more complicated than something like a mug construct—” She nodded to Prometh’s mug, full of coffee that had likely by now gone lukewarm. “Or a spoon. It has no real moving parts, aside from perhaps wheels, and runs largely on pure energy and its rider’s will.”

Temper rising, Lio bristled inwardly at the insinuation Ardebit _remotely_ understood how difficult or not it was to build constructs. To maintain them. To repair them and reshape them. When her sister could barely manage ornamental trinkets!

Galo tapped his chin in thought. “What if…I dunno, I’ve got some moves.” He mimed a few chops through the air, then turned to Lio. “What if we sparred or something while you made some constructs? To build up your concentration? Or should we maybe focus on making—y’know, the armor. From the video.” He grimaced and glanced over at Ardebit, nodding to her tablet. “…Does it have to look like _that_? I gotta agree with Lio, here: nightmare fuel.”

“The _visuals_ are hardly important,” Prometh huffed, directing his attention to Lio. “If we need to call in Burnish construct specialists, tell me _now_ —we don’t have time to waste another _month_ on you pissing about trying to do this on your—”

Lio shoved his chair out, rising abruptly to his feet. “I can’t be here,” he said shortly, ignoring Galo’s concerned _Lio?_ and marching out of the canteen. Prometh’s offended squawks and the screech of Galo’s own chair being pushed from the table followed him out into the hall, but he shut them out. Robotically, he let his feet lead him to the stairwell, up the four flights to the main lobby—and out the glass doors into the brilliant afternoon sunlight.

“Lio? _Lio_. Hey, where the hell are you going? We only just got—”

“I told you: I can’t be here.” The parking lot gravel crunched beneath his boots, and he held both hands out square in front of him, centering himself—a tall order at the moment—to draw Detroit into existence. The construct fought him a bit for once, as if it could sense his own unease with his ability to shape his Promare as he pleased, but he wrangled it under control.

He threw one leg over the seat as Galo jogged up beside him, one hand on the back of the bike. “Budge up, let me on.”

“No,” Lio said, and with a burst of bright but tempered Promare, he shoved Galo off—watching as he pinwheeled before collapsing onto his ass—then threw Detroit into mental high gear and sped off into the Waste.

He made Pyropolis in record time—or at least it felt that way. He’d zoned out for much of the ride, and when he’d come back to himself, the gleaming black border wall had been looming large on the horizon, the gates already swinging open to welcome him home.

It felt odd, admittedly, to crawl through the gates on Detroit all alone; Galo had been riding double with him every time he’d returned for the past nearly three months. But Lio couldn’t deal with Galo just now—he didn’t want to be _fixed_. He just wanted to be himself, not half of a whole. He wanted to be surrounded by his people, by those who understood him.

Besides, he’d embarrassed himself in front of Galo enough to last a lifetime; if only for a few hours, he would have _peace_. 

He could sense his Promare roiling fitfully in his core, agitated and frustrated as Lio was himself. “You’ll survive without him for a day,” he grumbled under his breath. “We’ve got more important business to attend to, and I can’t bear any distractions.” This did nothing to make his Promare settle, but it at least gave Lio a lodestar to fix on. He simply needed a plan—plans were what he was good at. Plans were why Gueira and Meis called him _Boss_ , and why Pyropolis existed at all, free and strong and home to his people.

Pyropolis relied on him—and so now, he would rely on it.

He dismissed Detroit with a thought, nodding to the sentries and marching through to the promenade leading from the entry gate to the central square of the settlement. It was mid-afternoon by now, an overcast day but still nice enough weather—even for the Waste—that the park had been taken over for children’s games and the odd picnic or three. One pack of younglings tried to convince him to join their game of tag, but he had to decline (genuinely regretfully). There was a time to be their Boss, and there was a time to be their leader. This was one of the latter.

Armor. Fucking _armor_. What Burnish wore _armor_ these days? They hadn’t needed such primitive, primal constructs since the Great World Blaze, when abject terror and survival instinct had taken physical form, manifesting as protective gear to guard against the weapons wielded by the human populace at large, crazed with fear of the unknown.

That had been thirty years ago, though. Over time, the drive to protect themselves by donning armor had shifted to a drive to protect themselves by fleeing, such that now every Burnish man, woman, and child could construct at least the most rudimentary of transports. Lio didn’t know a Burnish alive who could construct armor—but every member of his squads could draw a roaring, rumbling Burnish cycle into existence with a snap of their fingers. Fight versus flight, and flight had won in the end.

But just because Lio didn’t know anyone who could construct armor didn’t mean no such Burnish existed—he merely needed to sniff them out. Sniff them out, and pray they could give him the guidance he needed to see this mission through to a successful end. 

He cut through the park, heading for the residential tangle of streets in the northwest sector. A young woman trying her hand at gardening in the unforgiving soil pointed him three houses down from her own, to a ramshackle little thing that had probably been meant to be a shed at one point but was now home to the oldest Burnish in the settlement, Coreolus.

It should be noted here that Coreolus was merely the oldest _Burnish_ , not the oldest resident. He’d awoken in his early 20s, within months of the Great World Blaze, and at well into his 50s now, he was still spry enough he held a Squad Leader position. With nearly thirty years’ experience as a Burnish, there was nothing he hadn’t seen or heard. If anyone knew how to construct armor strong and sturdy enough to survive a trip to the planet’s core, it would be him.

He gave a short, sharp rap on the front door, easing up onto his toes to try and peer through the little window at the top, before a voice called out, “ _I’m around back! Around back, I said!_ ”

Lio spotted a rusty gate and carefully eased it open, poking through scrubby bushes and brambles until he found Coreolus lounging in an old metal lawn chair—a well-thumbed magazine with a yellowing front cover in one hand and a flask of something that Coreolus surely knew by now would not get him drunk in the other. He squinted at Lio as he approached, then with a sharp gasp, dropped the magazine and stuffed the flask into an inside jacket pocket as he struggled to his feet. “Boss—!”

Lio waved him down. “Easy, Coreolus. I’m here on personal business. As you were.”

“Personal business?” he eased back down into his chair, snatching up his magazine and smoothing out the wrinkled pages before placing it gently on a small table at his side. “Well what can I do you for?”

Lio summoned a few sparks of Promare, carefully fashioning them into a jet-black stool that looked entirely out of place on Coreolus’s cluttered back patio. “I…had a question about constructs,” he said gamely, climbing up onto his stool and wishing he’d made a chair more akin to Coreolus’s; it was very difficult to look composed when trying to hop up onto a stool and failing the first couple of attempts.

“Constructs? _You_ ought to be teaching _us_ that sort of thing, Boss,” Coreolus chuckled. “Denver’s a glorified moped compared to that Detroit of yours.”

Lio bowed his head. “I appreciate the compliment, truly. But I’m hoping I still have something to learn from you nonetheless.” Coreolus watched him intently, waiting, and Lio took a breath. “I was wondering if you happened to know anything about…constructing armor. Burnish armor.” Coreolus let his gaze fall away, staring out into the tall grass of his ‘backyard’ and rubbing his grizzled chin. “I…I’ve heard it used to be as common a construct as our cycles—perhaps more so, even. But I confess I don’t know any who’ve retained the talent.”

“No, no you wouldn’t—that was well before your time. Probably well before the time of most anyone in the settlement.”

“… _Most_ anyone? Which is to say not everyone?”

Coreolus shrugged. “Marline ran with a rougher crowd early on, as I hear it—I’ve never seen her go full-suit, but she’ll cuff your ear with a nasty gauntlet if you track mud into her cottage.”

“Marline?” Lio tried to place the name with a face but failed.

“She’s not on any of the squads; said it brought up some memories better left forgotten.” Coreolus slumped down in his seat, hands folded at his belly. “Now, I’ll tell you upfront: I’ve never managed more than a helmet to keep this thing from gettin’ splattered across the pavement while out riding—” He rapped his knuckles against his temple. “—And you don’t need me teaching you how to construct a helmet, that I know.”

Lio nodded. “An entire suit’s rather a taller order than a simple headpiece, though. A million different pieces. Joints and plates and movement.”

“Yeah, when you break it down like that, it does seem like quite an undertaking, that’s for sure. But it’s just a construct—it’s just our Promare, innate instinct, and a little bit of conscious will for flourish.”

“How do you _construct_ something you’ve never seen before?”

“Well how’d you construct Detroit? You didn’t—not consciously, I’d wager. You had a need, you had a will, and you had your Promare—and that’s all it takes.” Coreolus placed his hand over his heart, clutching at the dusty, motheaten fabric. “Armor’s the same—none of the Burnish who ever made it _thought_ about it. It came when they needed it—and you’re probably not gonna want to hear it, but ‘when they needed it’ was usually in a life-or-death situation.”

Lio groaned, burying his face in his hands, and Coreolus chuckled gruffly.

“Yeah, sorry Boss—if you’re thinking about crafting some armor for yourself…it’s not gonna be as easy a task as a coffee maker or a stool.”

“No, no, I didn’t expect it would be…”

“You could talk to Marline? But I’m betting she’ll tell you the same thing I am: the first armor constructs were a defense mechanism, manifested out of the wearer’s desperate desire to protect themselves. Now, it doesn’t _have_ to be a life or death thing, I wouldn’t say—that’s just traditionally been a primary trigger. Constructs are as much about desire as they are about need. And sometimes those are the same thing, which is when the construct comes easiest. But if there’s an imbalance, you’re gonna have to work at it a bit and center yourself. Train your body—and your Promare—to recognize what you want as a desperate enough need, and the construct should follow. It’s all in here.” Coreolus tapped his temple. 

Lio sighed, rubbing his eyes. Coreolus wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know on some level—but ‘the construct will come when you need it’ was not exactly a concept he wanted to stake his and Galo’s lives on, not to mention the entire mission. God, Prometh and Ardebit had _almost_ had him convinced they remotely knew what they were doing, but how had they missed in their research that _Burnish armor_ was a construct concept lost to time?

“Thank you for the advice,” Lio said, hopping off the stool and absently dismissing it. “Perhaps I’ll see if Marline can’t at least give me a show—maybe if I can see the construct for myself, even just a gauntlet, I’ll have a better vision to work from.”

He excused himself, thanking Coreolus again for his time, and picked his way back through the brambles and bushes. 

Will. Need. Desire. He had all three of those in spades—or at least he’d thought he did. If it was going to take his life— _Galo’s_ life—being on the line for the armor to show itself…Lio wasn’t entirely certain it was a risk he could take.

There was still this ‘Marline’, though. He would speak with her, see what she had to say, and then decide his next move from there. No sense thinking three steps ahead if one would get you where you needed to be.

The only trouble was he hadn’t a clue where she lived. He paused, considering going back to ask Coreolus for directions—then thought better of it. It had been humiliating enough going to one of his own squad members for lessons on crafting constructs. To confess he didn’t know the layout of his own city, a city he’d _founded_ , was a step too far.

Copies of the settlement rolls were stored in his study—including an accounting of every resident of Pyropolis as well as their last known address. There was no need to bother anyone else with his fool’s errand; he would dig up Marline’s location from there and get this business sorted without any further trouble. Hopefully.

He took the long way back to his apartment, cutting around the park to avoid any further run-ins with the children still swarming the park for their afternoon play. The odd patrol caught his eye, nodding in greeting, and he returned the gesture but otherwise kept to his course. Gueira and Meis would have heard he’d returned by now, if they weren’t out on supply runs—and really, they were about the last pair he wanted to run into right now. They’d only fuel his despair that armored constructs truly _were_ as impossible to craft these days as he imagined they were and use his predicament as ammunition to convince him the Promepolitans were just fucking with him.

They probably _were_ fucking with him, on some level (all that Burnish research, and they’d _never_ bothered to learn what constructs were and weren’t still actively crafted? Ridiculous.), but that didn’t make the threat of core degradation any less existential. No, he’d committed to this cause wholly by now, and his earlier tantrum and moment of self-doubt aside, he would do what he could to see it through. If for no other reason than pure, unmitigated ego.

He tromped up the stone steps of his stoop, leaning on the handle of his front door and shuffling his way inside. A quick peek into the kitchen found it empty, which suggested Gueira and Meis were indeed off on a supply run, else they probably would’ve helped themselves to a mug of his finest before setting off around the settlement to track him down.

He continued on up the staircase, mind already racing. If Marline was as skilled as Coreolus suggested she was, perhaps he could beg off a week from Prometh and his team to get this armor business sorted. He’d caught on quickly enough with Galo, learning to power the dummy core, so maybe without distractions he could have at least a rudimentary construct—or even the basics—mastered in half the time. The pressure was certainly mounting, so he didn’t anticipate any difficulty mustering enough desperation and anxiety to power a decent manifestation.

“Y’know, you really ought to lock your door.”

Lio’s hand shot out, a bolt of Promare streaking from his open palm instinctively—before, in a fit of panic, he yanked hard on the bead of will connecting himself to the little alien symbiote, causing the shot to bank wide. It blasted a smoking hole in the bare drywall of his second-story hallway, only just missing the very fragile, very irreplaceable head of one Galo Thymos.

Lio collapsed against the railing, shaking as he rasped out through heaving breaths, “Don’t _do that_! Fuck, I could have killed you!” Perhaps his Promare wasn’t quite as fond of Galo as Lio had imagined—or perhaps it was just very, _very_ fond of him and had wanted to bestow upon him more ‘lovebites’. 

Galo stood very still in the doorway to Lio’d bedroom, eyes tracking toward the hole in the wall. “Uh…y-yeah… I’ll maybe wait downstairs next time…”

Next time… Lio ran his eyes over Galo, noting the particularly windswept look he had about him, his hair in even greater disarray than usual. Oh. He’d ridden here, of course. For whatever reason, Lio hadn’t considered the possibility—likelihood, even—that Galo could simply chase after him if he’d been of a mind to do so. And clearly he’d been of a mind to do so.

Lio straightened, smoothing down his jacket and keeping his frown tight. “…How did you get in here?”

“I told you, you really ought to lock your door.”

“I meant how did you get into _Pyropolis_ , you dolt.”

Galo just shrugged, lips twisting in a self-satisfied little smirk. “I think one of the girls on sentry duty’s sweet on me.”

Lio just _hmphed_ , continuing on toward the opposite end of the hall, where his study waited. “Then she’ll shortly be _off_ sentry duty. Outsiders aren’t to be allowed in without an escort, everyone knows that. No exceptions.”

“Well my ‘escort’ took off without me, like a jackass.” Galo shuffled down the hall after him, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “You have any idea what a miserable ride it is out here from Promepolis without a magic bike?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Okay, then I’ll tell you it’s a _damn_ miserable one. Dust storms and bugs in my teeth and potholes every five feet. I’m pretty sure I saw a cow skeleton. _A cow skeleton_. What was a cow doing out here even?”

Lio sighed, pulling out one drawer of the old, rusted filing cabinet he kept in his study. “The same as you, I imagine: sticking its nose where it didn’t belong.”

“Hey,” Galo said, suddenly serious as he rapped on the top of the cabinet, leaning against it to tower over Lio. “Don’t start that bullshit again.”

“I left you behind for a reason.”

“Yeah, so you could come out here and lick your wounds, I guessed.”

“Well you guessed wrong.” He pieced through the folders marked with each resident’s name, mouthing them to himself.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” _Marline_ was just toward the back, after _Magnus_ , and he pulled it free, running a finger over the topsheet in search of her address. “I’m here to find Marline.”

“Marline? Who’s Marline?”

He committed the coordinates to memory before replacing the file and slamming the drawer shut with a loud _BANG_. “A Burnish,” he said, sliding past Galo’s bulk to slip back into the hallway.

“I gathered tha—hey, where are you going now?” He trailed after Lio, calling, “To see Marline?”

Lio gestured to the bedroom before hanging a hard right to jog back down the stairs. “Make yourself comfortable. I’m not sure how long this will take—if the dinner bell sounds, feel free to take part in the communal buffet in the park. I trust you can find your way.”

“Well yeah I could, but—” He made a mad grab, wrapping long fingers around Lio’s wrist and holding him fast. “ _Hey_.”

“Let go,” Lio warned. “Or I’ll let my Promare have at you.”

“I’m sure you would.” He showed Lio the forearm of his free hand, where a nasty red welt was welling up. “So I’m gonna ask _nicely.”_

“Ask _what_?” Lio said, temper rising, and when he jerked his wrist this time, it came away free as Galo released his grip.

“Ask you to stop, take a breath, and let me inside.”

“You’re already inside.”

“Don’t be a dick. I know you aren’t horny enough to warrant it.” He reached over and gently flicked Lio across the forehead. “We just spent _weeks_ learning to be partners, and at the first hurdle, you take off alone? That’s bullshit.”

“That’s _me_. You ought to know by now.”

“And _you_ ought to know that you don’t get to use me when you need me and then throw me away. That’s not how this works. I wasn’t gonna take it when we were just messing around, and I’m sure as hell not gonna take it now.”

Lio felt his cheeks prickle with shame. “…Well that was when the problem involved _both_ of us. Now, it just involves _me_.”

“So—what? I’m supposed to ‘wait for you’ again?” Galo shook his head. “No. Not this time. I hate sitting there, watching you, _wanting_ to help and you pushing me away. So I’m not gonna do it anymore. I’m your pilot, and you’re my engine, and we’re gonna do shit _together_. Whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t need— _coddling_. I don’t need your protection or whatever you may think. I’m not a child.”

“Who said you’re a child? I mean sure, you’re _acting_ like one—but maybe if you stopped putting words in my mouth, you’d see I’m not offering you my protection.” He firmed his lips. “I’m offering my company.”

“And how many times do I have to tell you I don’t _want_ your company? This is something I need to do on my own.”

“Is it something you _need_ to do on your own, or something you just _want_ to do on your own because you don’t wanna lose face around me?” Galo gave a soft, disbelieving snort. “As if anything you did could make you look bad in my eyes.” He shuffled down the steps, until he stood a few below Lio, leaning against the railing with their eyes on the level. “You’ve seen me screw up a dozen times. How come I’m not allowed to see you be vulnerable back?”

“…I’ve seen you screw up far more than a dozen times.”

“Yeah, so you see how weird it sounds?”

He did. That didn’t make it any easier. “…I don’t like being put on a pedestal.”

“…You let your people call you ‘Boss’. I’m getting mixed signals here.”

He didn’t like _Galo_ putting him up on a pedestal, then. He was so very vulnerable around this man, ever more so than he’d ever been with even Gueira and Meis. He tore his gaze away, rubbing his brow. “…I don’t have time to have this argument right now.”

“Marline, yeah?”

“Yes.”

“…I’m still coming. And we’re still gonna talk about it later.”

Lio started down the steps, and if Galo followed, that was his prerogative. “Aren’t you _tired_ of this?” he sighed. It was exhausting enough fending off Galo’s wayward attempts at support; surely it was even _more_ exhausting being the one constantly trying to offer it. Did there not come a point when you finally realized you weren’t getting through to this person and gave them what they wanted: solitude?

_“I’m getting mixed signals here.”_

Yes, well, that was the trouble, wasn’t it? Lio was at war with his own body right now, and while one part of him ached to be left alone, to not be _seen_ , an equally insistent part reached out for Galo’s hand every single damn time he extended it.

“Tired? Of having this conversation? Yeah, I am.” Lio reached for the doorknob once he crossed the entryway—but Galo leaned over him from behind, pressing a hand to the door to hold it shut as he angled to speak, low and soft, just at Lio’s ear: “So this is gonna be the last time. We’re gonna go talk to this Marline, and then we’re gonna grab dinner, because I’m starving since my lunch got cut short after _someone_ bailed, and _then_ we’re gonna come back here and talk until we’re on the same page.”

Lio leaned forward and let his forehead settle against the door. “We’ve talked until we’re _hoarse_ —”

“Yeah, and clearly it hasn’t been working.”

Finally, he was starting to understand. “Precisely.” He cocked his head to fix one cold eye on Galo. “ _Why_ would you insist on more of it, then? If I tell you I need to do this on my own—”

“‘Want’ to,” Galo correctly firmly.

“—Then _let me_.”

“All right,” Galo said, drawing back and crossing his arms over his chest. “After you tell me _why_. Why won’t you let me at least _be there_? Sounds like you constructing this armor is gonna be pretty important for me, y’know, not dying, so how come I don’t get to see you learn to build it?” He wrinkled his nose. “…Is it the _learning_ part? You’re embarrassed?”

Lio scoffed, yanking on the knob and striding down his steps at a brisk clip. Marline was living in what had once been an outlet shopping center, converted on Pyropolis’s founding to a stand of condominiums, one of which she shared with her non-Burnish daughter and grandchild. 

Galo jogged after him. “Wait, seriously? _That’s_ what this is about? I’ve already seen you fumble your way through your first attempt at _ass sex_ —”

Lio rounded on him sharply. “I didn’t _fumble_ —and keep your voice down! That’s hardly appropriate language to use in public.”

Galo glanced around. “…There’s no one else around.” 

And indeed there weren’t—it was nearing dinner time, and most of the populace would be preparing meals in their homes or else heading to the park where communal plates were being served—but that wasn’t the point. “Someone who embarrasses himself on the daily wouldn’t understand what it’s like to—” He cut himself off, biting his tongue, then turned on his heel with a low grunting growl of frustration and continued on toward Marline’s street.

“What it’s like to have people see you being less than perfect? To see that you’re human too and not some perfect Burnish construct yourself? You look good in black, but you’re not fooling anyone, Lio.” Galo drew up alongside him, bumping his shoulder. “You’re way softer than any construct I’ve seen you make.”

“I never claimed to be perfect—”

“Not out loud. But you think you are, on the inside. And when things happen that prove you _aren’t_ perfect, or aren’t as perfect as you think you’re meant to be—when things happen that force you to endure other people seeing you struggle, you…” Galo shrugged. “Well, you ride off into the Waste. And make your partner have to take the bus back to his apartment to grab his own bike that’s on empty now, so he’s _really_ hoping Pyropolis has a gas stand or something…” He gave Lio an expectant sidelong glance, and Lio picked up his pace.

“If you _know_ I don’t want people seeing me struggle, then what the _fuck_ are you doing here?”

“Trying to show you that I’m not _people_. I’m your partner.”

“We aren’t joined at the hip—”

“Hey, we are _sometimes_ ,” Galo said, and Lio could hear the brow waggle in his voice.

Lio stopped, turning on him and poking a finger in his chest. “I just—want—to do this on my own. You aren’t helping anything by being here.”

“Then why didn’t you just say so at the lab? Why’d you _run off_? And don’t bullshit me saying it’s just about not wanting to look bad—I had to sit there and watch you try and try and try again to get the feel for operating the dummy unit with me. You let me watch then, but you won’t let me watch now.” He took a step closer, dropping his voice. “…What the hell’s going on, Lio?”

Lio pursed his lips, tight. “…I thought we weren’t supposed to have this ‘talk’ until after Marline. And dinner.”

Galo kept his features even. “…Does that mean we’re actually gonna have a conversation, instead of me talking at you until I piss you off enough you maybe talk back a little? Because that doesn’t really help things much.”

“When has that stopped you from trying?”

“It hasn’t. It won’t. But it’d be nice to talk in a setting where I’m doing more than just pissing you off. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t _enjoy_ making you angry.”

“Well you’re very good at it.”

“I guess that’s ‘cause I’ve had a lot of practice…though it’s not exactly high praise…” Galo said with a wry chuckle. He sighed. “I know you want to do this on your own. I know you’re used to leading and not having anyone try and pull you back. I know that’s how you work best, and this…this thing we’re doing with Prometh, it’s just a bump in the road for you. You’ll still be Lio, even if you lose your Promare, and that’s fine. It’s _right_.” He tightened his jaw. “…But while we’re partners, while we’re relying on each other to stay safe, to see this mission through…don’t shut me out. Screw the professor and his lackeys, if you like. Just take me with you, if you’re gonna run off again. Just for now.”

It wasn’t a terribly large ask. It wasn’t unreasonable. It was just Galo, insisting on being the sweet, understanding idiot he’d been from day one. And Lio couldn’t say no. He didn’t _want_ to, even though his every instinct screamed to send Galo back on his way. He didn’t want to see Marline, or bother Coreolus again. He just wanted to chivvy Galo back to his apartment, up the winding staircase to fall face-first into Lio’s mountain of pillows. He wanted to let his Promare have its fill of Galo, to connect in every way humanly possible (and some ways only _in_ humanly possible) until Lio was _sick_ of him. 

He wanted to go back to when it was just the two of them (well, three if you counted Lio’s Promare) and all Lio had to worry about was how to delicately break it to his generals he was regularly sleeping with a man who thought the capital of the Eurozone was the letter E. 

But he couldn’t do any of that. He could only walk forward, find Marline, and learn what she had to say on the subject of impossible constructs Lio couldn’t even _imagine_ crafting. 

_“You don’t get to use me when you need me and then throw me away. That’s not how this works.”_

He hadn’t thrown Galo away—he’d only tried to keep him at arm’s length. But those looked the same when you were Galo Thymos, Lio supposed, and he was exhausted, tired of fighting Galo when embracing him was so much easier. 

Learning to construct armor would be a difficult enough task without having to manage Galo on top of it. Perhaps if he set boundaries—rules—he could get through this, even with Galo looming over his shoulder all the while.

He wiped a hand over his face, then beckoned weakly. “Keep up. And don’t distract me when I’m talking to Marline. Any remarks you feel compelled to make, make them after we’re done.”

“…And then we’ll talk?”

“…And then we’ll talk.”

Galo gave a weak smile. “…I can’t promise I won’t piss you off again.”

“Well. You’re very lucky my Promare likes you.” He inclined his head back along the path they’d been following. “Come on. I’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible.”

“Is it that bad?” Galo asked, falling into step beside Lio. “It’s just a construct, right? You’re good at those, even complicated ones.”

“You can ride a motorcycle, no?”

“Of course. You know I can.”

“Then surely you can pilot a spacecraft.”

“Oh.”

After ten minutes of knocking on doors, they finally found Marline tidying up her little space, ‘rooms’ cordoned off for her and her family using clothesline and strategically placed sheets. 

“My daughter doesn’t like my making constructs, so we make do the old-fashioned way,” she explained, tending to a hissing tea kettle that began to boil atop a little camp stove burner. She tipped out three fresh mugs of what smelled like a weak tea, then handed one to Galo and Lio in turn.

Lio frowned as Marline flicked the burner off, the cool blue light—made of gas and not Promare—winking out. “…She doesn’t like you making constructs?”

Marline nodded, sinking into a lumpy easy chair. “She was there, when I awoke. Terrified her at the time, and the memory still haunts her. I try and keep my flames banked around her and her little one.” She cleared her throat pointedly. “Which is to say, it might be best if we discussed whatever business you have with me _before_ they return from the park. They’re usually back around sundown, so I’m afraid I can’t spare more than perhaps twenty minutes.”

Damn. On top of all the day’s stresses, now he had to contend with a countdown? Lio grimaced. “That…is a shame. I’m afraid the matter I’ve come to speak to you about may take more than a mere twenty minutes.”

Marline frowned, gaze flicking to Galo, and then back. “…Is this to do with that saving-the-world speech you gave a couple months back? ‘Cause then I can imagine yeah, it’ll probably take longer than twenty.”

There was no sense in wasting time, in which case. Lio pursed his lips into a thin line. “I heard from Coreolus that…you might know something about armor constructs. The sort that Burnish used to craft to protect themselves early after the Great World Blaze.”

Marline’s frown deepened, and she calmly swirled her tea bag around her mug. “…I might. Not that Coreolus ought to be blabbing about things best left quiet.” 

“He didn’t blab. I asked.” He fixed her with an intent look. “…If you can construct armor, I’d greatly appreciate any advice on the matter.”

She lifted a brow. “Armor? For you? The Promepolitans giving you _that_ much trouble?”

“Marline,” he said, sharply so she understood that though he might not be her elder, he _was_ here in an official capacity, as the leader of her community. “Twenty minutes.”

“…Less now,” she grunted, then sighed and set her mug to one side before holding out her arm. With a twitch of one brow, her Promare coiled out from her body in swirling flames of vibrant hues, snaking around her arm before hugging close and coalescing into a thick glove of jet-black metal, with wicked spikes dotting the joints and fingertips like thorns. 

“Holy crap…” Galo marveled, gaping baldly. “…That’s so friggin’ cool…” He elbowed Lio, gaze fixed on Marline’s gauntlet. “You’ve gotta learn to make one of those. That’s the coolest shit I’ve ever seen.”

He needed to learn to make a hell of a lot more than a single glove—but Galo had a point. It _was_ an amazing construct, gleaming even in the low lamplight that limned all its slick lines and sharp angles in a soft orange glow. “This is all you can manage?” he asked, keeping his tone even, and Marline dismissed the gauntlet with a sharp _bah_.

“It’s all I can recall these days. The rest…” She sighed. “I remember the _feeling_ , how safe and powerful I felt in my armor. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it, to be honest. But remembering an emotion and actually feeling it again…well, those’re two different things. And like I said, I don’t construct much these days.” She rubbed her arm ruefully. “I’m soft now. Too many years knowing relative peace and security—even more so since settling here.” She caught Lio’s eye, though, and was immediately contrite. “And that’s not a complaint, you understand. It’s just difficult to get myself back in the state of mind where I could let the Promare work through me, protect me, make me into a living weapon.”

Lio felt any hopes he might have been harboring plummet into the pit of his stomach, an iron weight that made him feel sick. “…So it’s not something that can be taught.”

“I can teach you the sorts of emotions to focus on, and you already know how to channel your will to create constructs, but…” She shook her head. “Your armor’s special. It’s as much something your Promare does for you as something you do with your Promare.” She held out her arm again, staring at it with a sort of distant longing that suggested she didn’t entirely enjoy keeping her flames banked. “If you want armor, you’ll need a little bit of fear and a lot of drive to protect and shield and defend. You’ll need to believe you’re the only one who can provide that, you and your Promare.”

Lio made a face. Here he was, once again, being reminded that he no longer controlled his own body. Detroit wasn’t his—and neither would this armor be, if he ever managed to craft it. He’d always felt so… _composed_. He’d prided himself on keeping a cool head, organizing his thoughts, and enacting plans of action. Now, all the order he’d built his life around was crumbling because his symbiote had decided that this was a perfectly fine time to pitch a horny fit.

If he couldn’t convince his Promare to keep its lashing fissive tentacles to itself, how on the soon-to-be-nonexistent earth was he meant to channel its energy to craft a construct of such complexity few yet lived who could recall the art?

He couldn’t. This was the answer he knew in his gut yet avoided admitting in his mind. 

The sound of a child’s soft, muffled laughter drifted through the thin walls from the sidewalk just outside, and Lio promptly excused himself and Galo, thanking Marline for her advice.

“Sorry I couldn’t be of more assistance,” she said, with genuine contrition as she stood to see them off. “But these sorts of things tend to be innate and instinctual. It’s not really something that can be taught. You just have to have faith your Promare will help you out when the need arises. It’s got a vested interest in keeping you alive, after all.”

That brought very little comfort, but Lio forced a tight smile regardless, nodding politely to Marline’s daughter and grandson as he passed them by, all but barreling out of Marline’s home. He couldn’t put distance between himself and what had been his last, faint hope fast enough.

He was distantly aware of Galo jogging up from behind to join him, but his mind was a million miles away. Again. _Again_ he’d been hamstrung by his own damn body—or at least by the little alien sharing it with him. All this work, all this effort—laying himself bare for Galo and Prometh and Ardebit. Only to be brought up short, so close to their goal.

His feet, quite of their own volition, brought him to the edge of the green space in the center of Pyropolis, where the lamps had already been lit while everyone gathered on the long benches for dinner. Lio kept his features bright and his conversation genial as he communed with his people over their evening meal. Galo finished his portion in three bites and then scurried off to join a group of children who’d been begging him to play tag with them as soon as he’d stepped into sight. Lio watched them cavort, Galo oftentimes carrying one or two younglings on his shoulders as they raced across the park’s open field. The sight sent a tendril of warmth curling in his belly that had nothing to do with his Promare, and he could almost pretend it was twenty-four hours earlier, and _this_ was his new normal.

He didn’t eat much, worry and frustration having robbed him of his appetite, so he filled the time bouncing from table to table, glad-handing and reassuring his people that yes, his training was going quite well, no, the Promepolitans weren’t all that bad now that he’d spent some time with them, and of course, he’d be there for the Pyropolis founding anniversary event a group of community members were planning for the end of summer.

Slowly, the park began to empty as the lights flickered low, signaling to the residents to return home so that clean-up could begin. Lio offered his services in aid, hoping to put off whatever speech was coming his way courtesy of Galo, but was roundly refused, and with heavy steps he began the trek back to his apartment.

Galo was blessedly quiet on the walk home, and Lio had almost convinced himself that Galo had forgotten their agreement, lost in the happy buzz offered by a full belly and children’s laughter.

Almost, that is, until he climbed up the stoop and shuffled into his entryway, with Galo bringing up the rear.

“I get it now.”

Lio froze, one hand on the railing to scale the staircase, and he slowly, warily, cocked his head to the side to catch sight of Galo, leaned back against the front door with his arms crossed over his chest. He wasn’t even going to grant Lio the grace to endure this lecture from the comfort of his pillow pile, then? The monster.

“Get what?” Lio asked, feigning as casual an air as he could.

“What’s eating you. I’ve been trying to piece it together all day, wondering if it was me, or the mission, or the Professor, or what. And I get it now.”

“There’s nothing to ‘get’,” Lio said, trudging up the stairs. “I’m only worried about being able to manage an armor construct, that’s all. You ought to be worried too, on that note.”

“Maybe that’s what’s up on the surface, but there’s always something like five different layers to you.” The stairs creaked as Galo began climbing up after him. “I don’t mind it. It’s kinda fun sometimes, picking you apart. Though at times like this, I do wish I could read you a little easier.”

“If you want an open book—”

“You _really_ have to stop only listening to every other word I say, Lio,” Galo laughed, though it sounded a bit strained. Lio couldn’t blame him—he knew he was _not_ an easy person to be partnered with, in every sense of _partner_. “…You’re afraid. Of Sparky.”

And Lio scoffed, a harsh, barking thing that, in retrospect, had likely not been terribly convincing. “ _Afraid_? Of my own Promare? You realize how ridiculous that sounds? It’s saved my life more times than I can count—”

“Yeah, it _definitely_ sounds ridiculous. But it’s true, all the same.”

Galo’s failed attempt at humor was no longer amusing, and Lio whirled on him when he reached the landing. “And you know this—how? You aren’t Burnish. You don’t _know_ me, just because we’ve fucked a few times.”

Galo rested on the second step from the top, so they were eye to eye, looking furiously cool and calm. “One—it’s a hell of a lot more than a few times at this point. And two—you think I wouldn’t know, just ‘cause I’m not Burnish? Me, who’s spent the last three-plus years learning to work seamlessly with a partner, and the past three months actually doing so? I wouldn’t know about what it takes for two parts to function as a whole without one overwhelming the other?” He took another step, forcing Lio to step back and look up if he wanted to continue holding Galo’s eye. “Because that’s what’s going on here: everything you do, everything I’ve _seen_ you do, it’s either your Promare overwhelming you, or vice versa. And it scares the pants off you.” He shrugged. “Literally, in some instances.”

“This is _absurd_ —” Lio snarled, turning on his heel and marching for his room. He slammed the door shut behind him, but as it had no doorknob, let alone any lock, Galo simply eased it back open, stepping over the threshold calm as he pleased. 

“See? This is what you do when you’re scared: you run away, to a place where you feel more comfortable and in charge. Where you can tell yourself you’re in control.”

Lio chucked a pillow at him. “Get. _Out_. Or I’ll—”

Galo batted the pillow away. “Or you’ll do something nasty to me, yeah. Sic your Promare on me. Or zap me yourself. That’s another favorite tactic of yours, I’m learning. A painful lesson, but one that’s finally starting to sink in.” 

He continued his approach with slow but steady steps, and Lio took several scrambling steps back before he slipped on one of his own pillows—a gaudy sequined thing that said _Coffee is a Girl’s Best Friend_ —and toppled onto his ass.

Galo stopped just short of his flailing feet, dropping into a squat and shaking his head. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, you know. Not being in control. Letting life come at you how it will. It can be fun, even.”

“This isn’t about _fun_ —it’s about my _life_ —”

“It’s telling, you know, that you think those things are mutually exclusive.” Galo’s smile twisted into something a bit sad. “I know…you haven’t liked this thing we’re doing from the outset. And I told you I’d try to help make it suck less, but I can’t do that if you’re always running away from me. You like handling shit on your own, and that’s fine—you’re good at it—but in this case, you _definitely_ need a second set of eyes. And this set says that you totally wig out when you’re not master of your own fate, whether it’s this colony cock stuff or making a new construct—”

Lio bolted upright. “ _Where_ did you hear that word?”

“What word?”

“Tha— _colony cock_ ,” he bit out.

“Oh. Your generals.” 

“They’re fired.”

“You pay them?”

“They’re—demoted.”

“What do they call it when girls feel it?”

“Use your imagination.” 

“Now you’re trying to distract me.”

Lio flopped back down, arms spread as he stared up at the ceiling, exhausted. “You’re distracting yourself.”

Galo shuffled over, digging out a space for himself next to Lio in the middle of his pillow pile. “You told me yourself you don’t like not being in control.”

“ _Not liking_ something and being _afraid_ of it are two very different things.”

“Sometimes. Not so much when the reason you don’t like something is ‘cause you’re afraid of it. But you’re a smart guy, Lio Fotia. You oughta know well enough you’re never gonna get over your fear of something unless you actually recognize it. You can go to all the Marlines you want, but you’re not gonna find your answers until you start asking the right questions.”

Lio wrinkled his nose. “When did _you_ become a philosopher?”

“I’m not even gonna pretend I know what that means. I’m just gonna say that I know for a fact you don’t think of you and your Promare as being in a partnership. You’re all the time going on about how _it’s_ the one that chose me, that _it’s_ the one that acts up, and _it’s_ the one that ignores your wishes—but you’re just as guilty of ignoring what _it_ wants too, and like it or not, you’re sharing this body for the time being, so maybe don’t be such a dick to it? Or if you’re too horny to manage that much, lemme lend a hand.” Lio scowled at him angling his body away. He was so very much not in that sort of mood at the moment, and for once, his Promare didn’t seem to be either. Galo just snorted softly, reaching over to poke his shoulder. “I know I can’t fix this. And contrary to popular belief, I’m not _trying_ to. Not directly, at least. This is something you have to do yourself. You’ve gotta be the one to talk to it.”

“Talk to…? What, my _Promare_?” Galo nodded. “That’s ridiculous. I talk to the damn thing all the time—”

“No, I’m willing to bet you don’t. You maybe talk _at_ it. But mostly you just…feel it. You live with it. You let it do its thing, and then you respond. That’s reaction, not conversation. And clearly you _do_ know what a conversation is, so you don’t have any excuse.” Lio rolled his eyes so hard, he thought they might pop out and go skittering across the floorboards. “You thought you had control over it all this time, when really it was just…doing what you wanted it to do. So the first time you got on different wavelengths, with it wanting one thing and you wanting another, you got spooked, and now you can’t get back into sync with it.” Galo rolled back over onto his back, arms folded behind his head. “You need couples therapy.”

Lio lifted up onto his elbows. “I need— _what_?”

“Couples therapy. You know, where you sit down with a shrink and they tell you you’re not communicating properly and how you need to use ‘I’ sentences and how you only married him because he reminds you of your dad. Except in this case, your dad would be…I dunno, Gueira, I guess? Would you say your Promare’s more a ‘blow things up flashily’ type or ‘insidiously undermine them until they wish they were never born’ type?” 

Lio fell back onto the pillows, covering his face with both hands and groaning loudly. “If you’re not going to be serious, here, then I don’t see the point of this—”

“I _am_ being serious. Not about the couples therapy, obviously. Well, kind of about the couples therapy.” He kicked Lio’s leg gently. “Listen to your Promare more. Learn what it wants, let it learn what you want. And then maybe you’ll get somewhere.”

Lio let his hands fall away, cocking his head to the side to face Galo and screwing up his features into a sour frown. “What do _you_ know about Burnish-Promare relationships?”

“Well, next to nothing. But I know that thing inside of you is alive. That it’s got its own thoughts and feelings. And sometimes they’re the same as yours, and sometimes they aren’t. So if you want your roommate to stop acting like an asshole, maybe show it some respect. Spend some time with it. And _then_ ask it to do the dishes.”

First he was married to his Promare, and now they were roommates? Galo didn’t know what he was talking about. It was just more idiot-speak spewing forth from the mouth of the same man who thought ketchup counted as a vegetable. Galo wasn’t Burnish, Galo didn’t know him. Galo was _wrong_.

Except…except he _had_ been feeling strangely disconnected from his Promare. Everything had come so _easily_ before this colony cock business, and now it felt like it was only a matter of time before Detroit fizzled out from beneath him while he was racing across the plains of the Waste. 

He just wanted everything to go back to the way it had been, _before_ all of this. He wanted to be free to pour his time and energy into seeing Pyropolis thrive and ensuring his people were safe and healthy and happy—not getting his dick sucked. Was that really too much to ask? To be able to devote himself wholly to others without having to worry about himself? It had seemed a fine goal, once upon a time. Now it was consuming him—and it looked like it might doom them all in the doing.

“It’s not that late yet,” Galo said, apropos of nothing. “Wanna turn in early?”

To what end? Was he to get an early start the next day on still not being able to construct armor? “I’m not tired,” he said, knowing full well how childish he sounded. God, he’d done nothing but _whine_ all day, hadn’t he? Not without reason, he felt, but from Galo’s perspective, he was surely not a treat to be around at the moment.

“Mm. Want me to _make_ you tired?” he suggested far too innocently to be believable, and Lio rolled his eyes.

“No,” he said flatly, still in no mood to have his ill humor whisked away by arousal and aching desire. He needed to hold on to it for a bit longer, because sheer, stubborn will was what kept him anchored some days. Particularly days like today, where he felt buffeted and battered on all fronts, with even Galo displaying that tough love he occasionally flashed that made Lio wonder if—despite all they’d done—he maybe didn’t know Galo half as well as he thought.

Galo, though, was undeterred. “Does your _Promare_ want me to make you tired?”

An expectant pause followed, and Lio could feel it weighing upon him with real, physical heft. He frowned to himself, turning his thoughts inward to the little nugget of white-hot heat he could feel in his core, where bits of himself blurred into bits of his Promare and their feelings and desires intertwined—or, as was more often of late, _warred_. 

He felt no conflict just now, though. Only softly smoldering embers and comfortable curls of smoke that wound around him like a warm shawl, beckoning him closer if he dared but sated and satisfied for now. After these many months, perhaps Galo’s mere proximity was enough—for a period, at least—to comfort his Promare. Rising alongside Galo every morning and bedding down with him every night and spending most of the hours in between intimately connected in one form or another, Lio supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised, but a shudder of relief rippled out from his core all the same. It was no suit of armor, but it was a measure of control, all the same. A tiny bit of Lio’s body, ceded back to himself. 

“…No,” he said again, a soft sigh escaping him as he let himself relax against the pillow mound. 

“…Okay then,” Galo said. “I guess I’m good with just lying here, if you are.” He peeked over at Lio. “Are you?”

His Promare gave a warm, lazy pulse in his belly, and Lio released a little snort. “I could think of worse ways to spend an evening.”

Galo seemed satisfied with this, wriggling in place as he stuffed a hand into his pocket and drew out a folded tablet. He opened it up to its full-screen view and began to flip through a set of schematics, the cool blue glow of the screen casting a pall over his features.

“What’s that?” Lio asked.

“Cockpit controls for the Deus pod. Since someone threw a fit earlier and interrupted my run-down, I’ve gotta memorize all this shit in my free time now instead of having Heris walk me through personally.” He squinted at the screen. “I wonder if this thing has a dictionary app on it, ‘cause if not…” He gave a low whistle.

Lio _hmm_ ed and reached around to rearrange the nearer of Galo’s arms behind his head, using it as a less-comfortable but more-satisfying pillow. He shifted closer to Galo, until his head rested just where Galo’s arm blended into his shoulder. He closed his eyes, listening to the soft, deep thud of Galo’s heartbeat and enjoying the way it matched the rhythmic pulsing of Lio’s own Promare. 

Maybe Galo had the right of it after all, then. Maybe Lio _was_ a tiny bit frightened of his own Promare. Scared of what it could force him to do. Of feelings it could rouse within himself, entirely unbidden and dreadfully inconvenient. He’d had a plan for his life, and it had not involved Galo Thymos or Deus Prometh or saving the planet. 

But that plan had been smashed to bits, and no amount of whining and longing was going to bring it back. He was _Lio Fucking Fotia_ , as Galo liked to remind him almost on the daily, and he needed to accept that the path forward could no longer be walked alone. He’d relied more times than he could count on his generals, never discounting their aid and support as lost control, so why should now be any different? Why should he not accept a hand—tentacle? Whip of fissive energy?—from his Promare instead of fighting it tooth and nail? 

He’d read somewhere, ever so long ago, about how to escape a riptide. You couldn’t swim against it—you’d only tire yourself out and wind up being carried out to sea, where a watery grave surely awaited. No, instead, you had to swim _with_ it, along the shore, indulging long enough until the tide petered out and you could reach safe waters again. It wasn’t giving in. It was being _smart_ , which Lio liked to think he was pretty good at. Galo was already dumb enough for the both of them, after all.

Fighting his Promare was getting him nowhere, and time was drawing ever so short. He couldn’t do this alone, he couldn’t even do it with Galo. He needed his Promare, needed it _with_ him.

_Help me_ , he said, in the quiet of his mind. He willed the words down, coiling into his center where he felt that bright, secure connection between himself and his Promare, stretched impossibly far but still powerful and solid. _Help me, please_.

He needed to protect his people, the people that the Promare had created and brought together to form communities across the globe. These were not the only Burnish in need of protection, but they were _his_ Burnish, his to guard and shelter and support. And now they were his Promare’s as well.

_I want to protect them_ , he said, and then because it was true and because Galo could not hear him, he added, _I want to protect him as well. I don’t care about all the other Promepolitans, I don’t even really care about the Louts. But Galo…Galo I like. Despite it all, I really do. You can feel it, can’t you? We aren’t so different, you and I._

Such thoughts sounded trite now, especially given Lio had been the more stubborn of the two, what with being the only one between them with a functioning brainstem. But he could convey emotion and feelings and simple, base thoughts that surely his Promare—an alpha core, hadn’t Ardebit called it that?—could grasp.

He wanted to be worthy of that borderline awe Galo directed his way, every time their eyes met. Wanted to not disappoint him. And gall though it might, he _could not_ do that alone. Alone, he would struggle to construct anything beyond a simple motorcycle helmet. But with the whole of his Promare’s power well to draw from, and with these ardent desires to save and protect, surely… _surely_ …

Surely…


	10. Chapter 10

Lio must have drifted off at some point between one thought and the next, for when he next roused, it was to Galo trying—and failing—to pull his arm out from under Lio’s head without disturbing him. Lio blinked up blearily, wincing at the soft glow of morning light filtering through Lio’s curtained windows, and Galo made a disappointed noise in the back of his throat.

“Shit, sorry—you were cutting off my circulation, though, and I need to pee.”

Lio mustered enough strength to lift off Galo’s arm before collapsing back against a proper pillow, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. “What time is it?”

“Dunno. Not long after sunrise, though. We could sleep some more.”

Lio very much wanted to do just that—but an equally insistent part of him reminded in silent yet imperious tones that he didn’t have the luxury of sleeping in, not when he’d yet to muster so much as a gauntlet like Marline, let alone a full suit that could contain the Deus pod.

He then recalled that his opinion shouldn’t be the only one that held weight in decisions he made going forward and quickly took his Promare’s temperature. It was warm and content and sated, sluggish in its reactions to his probing as if to say _Five more minutes, Dad_. Lio gave a soft huff, then shooed Galo away. “Be quick about it, then.”

“I’ll pee so fast I’ll powerwash your toilet,” Galo said with a backwards wave, darting out into the hallway, and Lio buried his face in a shag-covered throw of faded blue so that no one could hear his inelegant snort.

The second time Lio awoke, it was a much more decent hour—and definitely time for breakfast, according to the gurgling rumble from his stomach. Galo was gone, but the muffled sound of puttering about from downstairs suggested he was making a mess of Lio’s kitchen. Groggily, Lio stumbled down the stairs, one hand firmly on the railing, and stifled a yawn as he clambered up onto a stool at the half-finished island.

Shortly, a mug of fresh-brewed coffee was slid into his grasp, and he mumbled happily, “Thanks.”

“I live to serve,” Galo said over his shoulder, returning his focus to a simple scramble in one pan and sizzling slabs of bacon in the other. It wasn’t quite the spread they could have enjoyed if they’d eaten with the rest of the community in the park, but it was made with more thought and a personal touch, so Lio wasn’t going to complain.

“…I wonder if I should even go in to the lab,” Lio muttered, biting sourly into a crisp strip of bacon fresh from the skillet. “It’s not as if I’m any use until I’ve managed to construct armor.”

“Huh? Of course you’re ‘any use’. You’ve gotta come in. Also I need a lift, like I said.”

“I thought you rode out here on your bike.”

“I did. And used up most of my tank to do so. So as you don’t seem to have a gas stand located anywhere on the premises, I might need a tow back into town…”

Lio rolled his eyes. He supposed it wouldn’t look very good for him to blow off training. He could at least learn the ins and outs of this fancy new pod they were meant to pilot together. Sure, it might get incinerated once they were dropped into the cone of Mount Fennel when he inevitably failed to construct suitable armor, but at least he’d have the know-how.

In the end, he gave in, because he didn’t want Galo to see he was still very unsure of himself (he was _not_ going to admit he was scared, not ever), and he’d made a promise to his people to protect them to the very last measure. He would prepare for this mission with the full belief that, when Drop Day came, his Promare would do what the Promare did for _all_ Burnish: protect them.

So it was, for now, back to charging up the pod capacitors and learning the handling of the unit alongside Galo, for once the Promare had been released, they’d lose any armor he eventually managed to construct, and it would be up to the both of them to help orient the core properly and guide it back to the surface under its own stored power with the help of the Absolute Freezing Charges bolted into the carbide casing. 

“Now, you’ll have enough charges to last through the better part of the mantle, at which point the unit _should_ be able to withstand the heat and pressure. Mind you, this is largely theoretical, based on simulations, and there’s not exactly a great deal of research that’s been published regarding successful trips to the planet’s core and back…” Prometh coughed into his hand. “But we’ve got the best and brightest minds gathered from around the world working on this project, so you’re in the _very_ best hands you could possibly be!”

“ _Theoretical_ and _simulations_ are precisely the words I like to hear when I’m about to put my life on the line for a one-shot chance at saving the planet,” Lio drawled, chin propped up in one hand, and he gently ribbed Galo, who startled awake—Lio didn’t know why Prometh even made him sit in on these meetings when the dolt spent half the time napping.

“Well it’s not as if we could test the pod without Burnish volunteers,” Ardebit protested. “It’s not exactly the sort of experiment one could conduct ethically in _any_ manner.”

“Yet here we are, your guinea pigs.”

“I’ll remind you that _you_ agreed to participate in this project, Lio Fotia,” Prometh said, in that raspy, crotchety tone he took when he thought Lio was getting too smarmy. “You do _your_ part, and we’ll do _ours_ , and if that’s not enough in the end, well at least we won’t have left anything on the table.”

And that, Lio supposed, was all that could reasonably be expected of them.

Still, even as the days until the mission’s start grew short, Lio continued to struggle with convincing his Promare to cooperate with the complicated armor construct. He’d managed to muster a fingerless glove that was more for fashion than protection—but that had been the extent of his success. He thought perhaps his Promare had obliged that much out of sheer pity, for no matter how much he begged and pleaded, tried to impress upon it the gravity of the situation, it didn’t seem to understand, and he felt just as disconnected from it since the colony cock business had begun as ever.

“…It’s tomorrow,” Lio said, into the dark, quiet stillness of the night. Galo’s heartbeat was a slow, steady rhythmic thud in his ear that he’d found of late he couldn’t drift off without. It was a dangerous habit he’d cultivated and one that would be very, very painful to break. Perhaps, with his Promare gone, he would have an easier time of it. One could hope.

“Yup,” Galo said, rubbing his shoulder absently, his breathing going long and even as he began to drift between waking and sleeping.

“…You don’t seem worried.”

“Why should I be? We’ve trained our asses off for the past three months. We’ve got this.”

“ _You’ve_ got this. I’m still struggling to construct more than a glorified oven mitt. You really ought to be worried.” He tweaked one of Galo’s nipples. “You’re the one who’s going to die if my instincts don’t kick in, like Ardebit’s hoping.”

“C’mon, don’t be ridiculous.” Galo gave him a comforting squeeze. “You’re gonna die too, don’t worry. I’ll just die _first_ is all.” Lio then pinched the other nipple, harder, and Galo seized. “Hey, don’t start something you aren’t prepared to finish.”

“That wasn’t a _come on_ , it was punishment.”

“For some people those are the same, I hear.”

Lio then promptly released the nipple and clapped him hard on the pec, which Galo definitely did not misinterpret, bringing a hand up to shield himself and sticking his tongue out at Lio. The defensive posture didn’t last long, though, as he looped his arm around Lio’s shoulder again, drawing him close—and keeping a firm hold, perhaps thinking if he crushed Lio to his body, Lio couldn’t wriggle free to assault him further. He wasn’t wrong.

“…I really don’t want you to die.”

“I don’t wanna die either, don’t worry. I don’t have a death wish.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“I _don’t_. I’ve just got a hell of a lot of trust in you.”

“I think I’ve told you before that’s not very smart of you.”

“You’ve also told me before I’m really dumb, so there you go.” He cocked his head to the side, burying his nose in Lio’s hair with his lips pressed just against Lio’s forehead, brushing softly as he spoke. “You don’t have to have any trust in yourself. I can have enough for the both of us. Then all you have to do is trust _me_.”

And he did, _god_ he did. He just thought Galo perhaps had his own trust misplaced. How could he have such blind faith that everything would work out? What evidence had he seen to support this vain hope? A dark, bitter part said it was easy to hope for success when failure only meant your own undoing. Lio had ever so many more lives than his own riding on this. 

“…I can hear you thinking.”

“…I’m sorry,” Lio apologized, exhausted with himself. “I knew we need a good night’s rest before all this, I just…”

“You just…?”

“…I wish I had your faith. Even if you don’t think I need it, it would certainly help.”

“Why don’t you, then?”

Lio’s features twisted into an expression of _You have to ask?_ in the dark. “Because I don’t know if you’ve been watching me the past month or so, but there’s a crucial part of our plan not yet in place, and it’s all my fault.”

“How is it your fault?”

“How is it my—?”

“It’s not, that’s how. It’s _not_ your fault. You’ve been training hard to develop a new skill, and it just hasn’t come yet. It happens sometimes. I’ve been training for what we’re gonna do most every waking moment for the past three years. You’ve been training for a couple of months. Less, even, for the armor. Give yourself a break.”

He couldn’t give himself a break, though. Not now of all times. “…Relaxing is the last thing I should be doing right now.”

“No, it’s _exactly_ what you’re supposed to be doing right now, ‘cause we’re supposed to be getting some sleep.” He sighed, reaching one hand up to ruffle Lio’s hair. “Is Sparky worried?”

Lio stretched out his mind, finding nothing pushing back but a warm, contently pulsing calm. “…No. But it’s got no idea what we’re about to do. At best, it knows I’m agitated, though not about what.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s like me, and it knows everything’s gonna be fine. Maybe it likes you as much as I do and wants to help keep you around a little while longer.”

“Maybe it just wants to save its own skin, figurative though it may be.”

“Hey, whatever it takes.” He wriggled in place, until he’d shifted enough that their foreheads kissed, and Lio could feel Galo’s nose rubbing against his own. “I’m not done with you yet. So don’t think you’re getting out of this by dying tomorrow.”

“Done with me? You never had much of a choice; my Promare’s the one that chose you, not the other way around.”

“Oh no?” Galo said, then failed to elaborate, releasing a long, contented sigh.

Lio lay there, listening to Galo drift further and further off, and fought the urge to summon even a tiny little spark, just enough to throw the planes of his face into soft relief so Lio could watch until he grew too weary to keep his eyes open.

This stupid man. This stupid, stupid man and the deathwish he very much _did_ have, the way he kept challenging Lio, speaking to him in tones even his generals didn’t dare use. Loud and brash and trusting and _giving_. Everything Lio was not, though not for lack of trying. It just all came so effortlessly to him, and Lio wondered if he didn’t have a point after all about this ‘soulmates’ business, kind of.

_You brought him to me; please don’t take him away now._

Lio twisted and contorted, slowly and carefully, until he’d freed one arm to lay a hand gently along the curve of Galo’s jaw. “…I think my Promare might be in love with you,” he said, low and faint and a tiny bit forlorn.

“That’s sweet…” Galo mumbled, just a little sleep-drunk. “But unfortunately, I’ve kinda got a thing for someone else…”

Lio didn’t know if Galo even understood what he was saying or not, but he chose not to ask—instead closing his eyes, burrowing close, and willing himself to sleep.

Morning came far too early, and the bright, cheery sunlight clashed dramatically with Lio’s dark mood, which hovered about him like his own personal stormcloud. The coffee was tasteless, and he forewent breakfast altogether, fearful it wouldn’t stay down.

“Good idea,” Galo said with a serious nod. “I don’t think the Deus Whatever’s got a toilet, after all.”

Mount Fennel loomed ominously, casting a dark shadow over the whole of Pyropolis, and Lio stared up at it mutely while Gueira and Meis gave him the final rundown of the state of things, reassuring him that they’d see to it all the preparations enacted over the past few months paid off, should the mission prove successful.

“We’ll keep the light on for you, Boss,” Gueira said, and Meis nodded sharply. 

Lio let his eye fall away from the towering volcano, tracking over to his generals as he swallowed, chest tight. “…Thank you, truly. I can’t imagine leaving the settlement in more capable hands. I know you haven’t agreed with every decision I’ve made, on any number of subjects, but I haven’t taken your support lightly. If I…” He paused, collecting himself. “…If, for whatever reason, the task falls to you to carry on watching over our people—”

“Oh put a sock in it, Lio,” Gueira said, forcing a tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he cuffed Lio roughly on the shoulder. “Just focus on getting back, okay? Don’t say stupid shit like that.”

“Yeah. You’re a way better leader than the two of us put together, anyway.” Meis reached out, punching him lightly on the other shoulder. “It won’t be Pyropolis without you, so don’t do anything stupid down there, got it?”

Lio’s chest tightened another screw turn, and he nodded, not trusting his voice, then quickly turned on his heel and marched over to Galo, who’d quietly removed himself while Lio said his goodbyes. 

“You done?” Lio nodded again. “No goodbye kisses?”

“No. They already gave me the best parting gift I could have asked for.”

“A goodbye grope, then?”

Lio snorted, wiping his eyes fiercely. “No. A total lack of respect.”

Prometh had prepared a veritable convoy for Drop Day, and they had already set up camp at Fennel’s base by the time Galo and Lio departed Pyropolis to rendezvous. Ardebit had a mountain of screens on display, with readouts and processes running whose purpose Lio could only guess at, and there had to be a thousand miles of cables snaking around beneath their feet. The Deus X Machina was still being offloaded in pieces, a lumbering thing that even two weeks of training runs with Galo had not imbued with any manner of grace. Prometh sat under a shaded awning outside a massive RV that had a satellite whirring about on top, calmly sipping a drink from a mug that said _Dimension’s Best Xenobiologist_.

Useless, all of these trappings, if Lio couldn’t manage his armor construct in—he glanced at one of Ardebit’s screens, which showed a countdown in flashing red numbers—the next two hours.

They were chivvied into a tent and asked to slip into the slick, black form-fitting suits that had been hand-crafted to ensure they didn’t contaminate the pod. Lio had felt right at home in his at their first fitting—while Galo had decidedly _not_. “Skin-tight suits look better on some of us than others,” Galo had muttered, red-cheeked, and Lio had never disagreed with him more. 

“Hey, eyes to yourself,” Galo snapped in the present, coupling the admonition with a flick to Lio’s forehead. “I feel like a piece of meat in this thing.”

“You _look_ like a piece of meat,” Lio said, drawing his zip up to just below his chin and tapping the emblem over his heart to activate the sensors embedded in the fabric. A line of cool blue lights ran down the left side of his body, mirrored on the right by warm pinks. He didn’t dislike the vibe at all. It was a fine suit to die in. He stepped over to Galo, tapping his emblem for him and marveling as his suit lit up in turn. “There. All ready to go. Now they’ll know the instant that we die.”

“This thing’s stifling,” Galo grumbled, tugging at the collar with open discomfort. “You’d think with all the gadgets and gizmos they built into these things, they could’ve added some AC.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Lio said, turning on his heel to exit the tent.

“You’ll be wishing yours had AC too before this is over!” Galo called, tugging vainly at the material covering his ass before he came following with an awkward waddling step.

In the time it had taken them to change into their suits, the Deus X Machina had finished being assembled and now towered some fifty feet over the surrounding convoy with a spidery scaffolding strapped to it, which Lio mounted with plodding, defeated steps, putting off the inevitable for as long as humanly possible. 

He climbed into the cockpit, sinking into his bucket seat with a sigh, and took a moment to gather his thoughts while Galo began fiddling with the control panel. He was so very not in the proper mindset for this. The mission would have been difficult enough _with_ armor. Now? They’d be lucky if they got five steps before Lio’s scattered thoughts sapped the unit of power and they tumbled face-first into the dirt.

“Hey, don’t space out back there,” Galo reminded, still focused on his own task as he ran a finger down a checklist while his other hand skittered across the control panel in a blur of movement. “Gimme some juice; we’ve got a date with destiny.”

“Right…” Lio muttered, reaching for the control rods. He forced himself to focus on the task at hand, willing his Promare to filter through the conduits built into the unit’s limbs. It came sluggish at first, then quickly built with a mounting intensity, and the control rods began to glow in his grip with the energy being channeled through them. All around, dials and displays bloomed to life, spitting out readings Lio couldn’t begin to understand. He didn’t have to, though—this was Galo’s job. He recalled Varys and Remi bickering in a dimly lit bar, with gruff pronouncements of _He puts the gas in the tank, and I do the drivin’_.

Suddenly, the unit rocked and gave an uneasy creak, and Lio jolted—but kept his grip tight on the control rods. Galo frowned at one of his screens. “You’d think they’d be a little gentler—we’re precious cargo they’re moving!”

Indeed. It would be _most_ unfortunate if the cable connecting the Deus X Machina to the helitransport currently airlifting them into Fennel’s cone snapped, sending them crashing back to earth in a mangled pile of wreckage. A tragedy of the highest order. Lio desperately hoped it didn’t happen, truly he did.

He was distantly aware, through sidelong glances at one of Galo’s screens, that they were approaching the mouth of the volcano, and he could feel the pressure beginning to mount as a real, physical sensation of impending doom. His tension transformed into pulses of frenetic energy that surged through the Deus X Machina, and the soft lights lining the pod’s hull flared briefly. 

There was no turning back now. Oh certainly he could buzz Prometh over the comms and beg off, suggest they try again another day, but the truth of the matter was he would _never_ be ready. He wasn’t the Burnish they wanted—that person probably didn’t even exist these days. He was just a boy, playing at being not-a-King of a paltry little settlement full of people who wanted the same thing he did: to live in peace, to not be bothered, to be able to be themselves.

This wasn’t _being himself_. This was being whatever it was Prometh wanted. What Galo thought he could be but was sorely mistaken on. This was— 

A pulse.

Not from him. Not from _within_ , but _without_. 

It lapped at his consciousness, like gentle waves on a distant white-sand beach, teasing and tempting. Lio closed his eyes, melting into his seat, and turned towards the sensation. It was…active, not passive. It summoned him. It…it _called_ to him. 

But this was different from that urgent, insistent tug that he’d felt when he’d found Galo. Not so rough, not so eager. It was gentle and _familiar_. It felt…

It felt a little bit like _home_.

His eyes snapped open. No, his home was _here_. With Gueira and Meis and his people. His home was what he’d _built_. This pulse…it wasn’t his home.

It was his Promare’s. 

He was sensing the space-time rend that lurked way down deep in the planet’s core, keenly tangible here at Fennel’s lip, where the magma churned and bubbled fiercely below. 

His Promare wanted to go back. It wanted to leave—it _wanted_. It had urges and desires, and he’d known that, he _had_ , but he’d dismissed them as base and animalistic in nature simply because that was how _he_ felt when he indulged. But the Promare weren’t human, and holding them to human standards…well, it hadn’t done much to help Lio bond with the creature, had it? 

Was this what Galo had meant? Listening to his Promare and not just humoring it but trying to understand it—picking apart the emotions that washed over him and learning to read them for what they were, not what Lio casually assumed them to be? 

Listening meant nothing, though, without action. What did it make him, if he could begin to understand what his Promare wanted— _truly_ wanted—but did nothing to help? This body was a prison for his Promare, when it all came down to it, and like Lio, it longed to be _free_. To go home. To live and let live. 

Lio had not always gotten along with his Promare… Not at the outset, and even less so of late. But such emotions had been born of a lack of understanding, not true malice—and now? Now Lio was finally realizing that what he and his Promare wanted were not in fact so very different after all.

They both just wanted to go _home_. And they both needed each other’s help to do so.

Lio splayed a hand over his chest, clutching at the slick fabric. With each steady thud of his heartbeat, he thought he could hear an answering pulse from far, far away. 

He wanted to set the Promare free. Had wanted to do so ever since he’d learned of the Faustian deal they’d landed in when the dimensional rift had opened, connecting the two universes.

But a not insignificant part of him, perhaps equally ardently, had been holding on to it, after a fashion. It had been a part of him for so long, it made up his very identity now. These creatures had brought such pain and suffering to his people, but so too had they been protectors and servants. It helped nothing, too, that Lio’s Promare was his one real, tangible link to Galo, and once it was gone…he wouldn’t know what to do with himself, bereft of any excuses to spend time in this magnificent idiot’s company any longer.

But he couldn’t be selfish anymore. That wasn’t who he was—or at least not who he tried to be. His Promare had its own instincts and drives, and Lio had his too. His was to serve, to protect. And whether the object of that drive was his Promare or his people, _that_ was what he needed to focus on. 

_Will you help me help you?_ he asked, no longer pleading or begging, but a hand extended in friendship. Partnership. _We can only do this together._

A rush of energy bubbled through him, like a circuit completed—heady and thrilling, it felt like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, and he gave a startled, giddy sort of gasp. Oh. _Oh_ , he hadn’t felt this in so long. That sense of power, that sense of _purpose_. 

It thrilled through him, like he’d bit into a livewire, and he thought he could do almost _anything_ right now.

Galo tilted back in his seat, enough to throw his head back to eyeball Lio from upside down. “Ready when you are, Boss.” He then shifted around, tossing an elbow up onto his seat back and lifting a brow. Lio wondered what he saw, to pull that face. “Got your shit together finally?”

Lio followed the line of his arm, to where he had the control rods clutched tight. He adjusted his grip, then settled back and squared his jaw. “…I think perhaps I do.”

Ardebit had been right, in the end: it _had_ been instinctual. But instinct and will were intrinsically intertwined when Promare were involved.

Lio closed his eyes and sank down into himself, examining the instincts that drove his Promare and the will that informed his own drives. The will to lead, to protect—but not with a shield. With a _sword_. With _power._ He was no shrinking violet, no wallflower. His armor could never have been defensive, and perhaps that had been the trouble all along, tripping him up on each attempt. His was a fucking _alpha core_ , after all. 

He’d been right to be frightened of himself. Now everyone else would be as well.

He could feel his Promare snaking out from him in a long, writhing tentacle of pure fissive energy, not unlike the whiplike tendrils that had given Galo his ‘lovebites’ but ever so much more massive. It bulked and grew, until Lio felt like he could wrap the world in his coils and squeeze the life from it in heat and pressure and darkness. 

Distantly, he was aware of Galo going absolutely _feral_ with glee, screeching most inelegantly, “Holy— _fuck_ , Lio, this is so _fucking_ cool! Are you seeing this? I mean, you have to be, but _are you seeing this_?”

Lio’s lids fluttered open, and the cockpit swam into view. He still had his hands gripped tight about the control rods, which pulsed with an imposing rhythmic thump he could feel in his bones, and Galo was banging his fist against one of the monitors.

Lio’s eyes slid over to the screen, and he squinted to make out what looked like live footage being transmitted from a drone circling overhead—and he finally saw, in its full, fantastic glory, his armor.

He’d constructed a _goddamn dragon_.

Scales of gleaming onyx caught the sunlight and sent shattered rainbows spangling, and from its gaping maw spilled flames in riotous pinks and blues with each panting breath. It writhed and wound its way around the rim of Fennel’s cone, the bulk of the Deus X Machina now forming its massive skull, and when Lio turned his consciousness inward, focusing through his Promare and their connection to this creation of living flame, he could see through its ‘eyes’, gazing out upon the bubbling sea of magma far below, beckoning them down, down into the depths. 

Galo grabbed his comms mic, using his fist to block the sound, and whispered with a stuttering hiss, “ _Really_? You had to show off? When we’re not gonna be able to do _shit_ for the next, like, twelve hours?” He groaned and flopped back against his chair. “You’re _killing_ me here, Lio.”

“What can I say?” Lio said with a giddy little grin, marveling at his own abilities. “If this was to be my final construct, I wanted to go out with a bang.” It wasn’t entirely true, as he’d had no conscious role in choosing this form, but he didn’t hate it, not in the least. His Promare and he were once again in perfect sync, and the relief that washed over him was tangible. He wanted to cry, but as there were cameras on the cockpit, he decided to laugh instead—and probably looked a bit mad in the doing. 

“Starting to wish I’d indulged in that morning pull instead of grabbing breakfast right about now…” He gave Lio a long, appraising look. “You sure Sparky’s not up for one last hurrah?”

“Oh, it could be easily convinced, I’m certain—but I do need to maintain concentration on this construct, you know. Lest it shatter and we wind up incinerated a thousand miles down.”

Galo made a face, taking his hand off the mic. “Not entirely convinced it wouldn’t be worth it…”

_/“COME IN, THYMOS AND FOTIA. DO YOU READ? YOUR COMMS ARE MALFUNCTIONING. REPEAT—YOUR COMMS ARE—”/_

“Holy hell—” Galo winced, tugging the cups of his headphones free. “A simple ‘do you copy?’ would’ve sufficed!” He tapped the mic. “Construct armed, capacitors engaged, all systems go and prepped for launch.” He threw Lio a wink over his shoulder. “Always wanted to say that.”

_/“Please inform Fotia that photographs and video footage of his impressive construct have already been uploaded to his Promepedia page. Also, several of the techs have soiled themselves.”/_

“Well, you can’t really blame ‘em. Lio’s ‘impressive construct’ is _way_ bigger than you’d expect—I mean, looking at him, you’d assume some degree of proportionality, but you’d be wrong! It’s a lot thicker around the middle than the usual specimens, too, so—”

Lio roughly kicked the back of Galo’s chair, hissing, “Stop acting like a _child_ and get on with it!”

Galo turned to give him an offended frown. “Hey, I’m gassing you up here!”

_/“If there are no further questions, gentlemen? I think we must bid you farewell and good luck. Once you’ve passed through the crust, we’ll likely lose communication with you until your eventual return.”/_

“I think we’re good, Professor,” Galo said, giving his control panel a final once-over. “We can handle it from here.”

_/“We’re all praying that you do. On your way, then!”/_

The comms fell silent, and Galo tutted softly. “They aren’t even gonna smash a champagne bottle over this thing’s nose or anything? Isn’t that bad luck?”

“I doubt a champagne bottle’s worth of luck is going to make all that much difference,” Lio said, easing their construct from its rest position into a coiled strike posture. The energy output had to be absolutely _staggering_ , yet the unit moved with all the grace and speed of an actual living creature, seeming to expend no effort in the movements Lio guided it through. 

A spasm jerked through one arm, and he frowned down at it—he was trembling.

Galo caught the motion, eyes tracking down Lio’s arm, then up to his face. “…You sure you’re up for this?”

“…Would it matter if I wasn’t?”

“It would to me.”

Lio took a breath, willing his heart to slow its fierce gallop. He focused on the great wyrm he now commanded, sleek power and pants-soiling prowess, and strained to make it his own. “I don’t know if I’m up for it…but I’m ready.”

Galo gave a rough little chuckle. “…Yeah, I feel you. There’s a lot more places I’d rather be with you right now than strapped inside a tin can about to rocket to the core.”

“…Maybe. But I think there’s no one else I’d rather be strapped inside a tin can about to rocket to the core with than you.”

Using three fingers at once, Galo pushed a series of sliders all the way up. “You say the sweetest things, Boss. Shall we?”

“Mm. Let’s shall.” 

With a sudden jerk that pressed him back against his seat, almost to the point of blackout, Galo threw the unit into a steep dive, straight down into the magma pool roiling deep within Fennel’s cone that Lio watched, mutely, through one of the half-dozen monitors receiving live feeds delivered direct to the Deus X Machina for as long as it was in range of the drones buzzing overhead. He felt the construct slam into the magma before he saw it on the feed, and instinctively, he fortified the sturdy scales against the scalding lava beating at the dragon’s hide as they dove down, down, down. 

“How we doing back there?” Galo asked, focused on his monitors.

“Well, we aren’t dead.”

“Yeah, I noticed that much. Thank Sparky for me.” 

And Lio did. 

The armored construct navigated the lava tubes with ease, clearing the crust and continuing through the mantle layer without breaking a figurative sweat. They were making remarkable time, traveling at a much faster clip than predicted, as Ardebit’s calculations appeared to have been based on travel via the Deus X Machina clad in otherwise traditional Burnish armor and not a creature the size of a skyscraper. “You just had to be extra fancy…” Galo marveled, shaking his head and keeping his focus on the display readouts by which he was piloting the unit. 

Still, they _were_ traveling to the core of the very planet, so several hours passed without event before Lio began to feel _it_. 

“Feel what?” Galo asked, distracted by a power surge in the Deus X Machina’s left lower limb. He leaned over one of the displays, mashing his thumb over a scrolling warning.

Lio rubbed his arms fitfully, then resumed his grip on the control sticks with a grimace. “It’s—a pressure. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Well _duh_. Without your armor, we’d be crushed like a tin can at this depth. That’s half the reason we needed it.”

Lio tossed his head, scoffing. “That’s not what I—” He sighed, slumping back. “…You wouldn’t understand.”

Galo threw a glance over his shoulder, brows knit. “…You having trouble maintaining the construct? Now’s a _really_ bad time to be losing focus.”

“No,” he said shortly. The construct was delightfully simple to maintain—perhaps because his Promare was in such a very good mood. He could feel it buzzing over their connection, alive and eager, setting his blood bubbling with energy the closer they drew to the core. “Just go back to your dials and displays.”

“Mm, now there’s the crotchety dick I know and love,” Galo leered—but turned back to those dials and displays all the same. “Pissed you aren’t getting my full attention like usual?”

Lio ignored him, instead turning his thoughts inward, checking that the construct was still holding true and patching any weak points he noted. The pressure of the rocky mantle around them was real and mounting, struggling to crush the construct, but it was nothing more than a trifle. 

The pressure in his _head_ though, was another story entirely.

What had started as gentle waves buffeting against his consciousness had turned into stormy, choppy seas the closer they drew to the core. He imagined each wave cresting with the delightful tinkling laughter he sometimes imagined he heard in his mind before crashing, with almost physical force, against him. It was nothing he couldn’t handle…for now. 

He wasn’t certain he’d be able to claim the same once they reached the core, though.

 _Are these your companions?_ he wondered silently. _Are they calling for you, even from so far away? Are we truly doing the right thing?_

But his Promare could do nothing more than pulse warmly in his center, which he took to be a sign it was at least not displeased with the direction things were moving. 

He struggled to ignore the building pressure, focusing on keeping the Deus X Machina powered, repairing any dings and chips the armored construct sustained as it burrowed deeper and deeper, and even humoring Galo in his requests they play a game called _I Spy_ , which seemed more suited to long road trips than being trapped in a cramped sphere several thousand miles underground. 

But such distractions only delayed the inevitable, and it was with great reluctance that he released his grip on the control rods and ground out through grit teeth, “I’m sorry—but we need to stop.”

It was not a request—more a warning, for Lio’s disconnect soon brought the Deus X Machina to a (figurative) screeching halt as the unit abruptly switched to its backup power. The cockpit lights dimmed, and all but three monitors blipped out, dark. 

Galo whirled around, instantly alert and already tugging at the harness that kept him strapped in place. “What the—you okay? Hey, you okay? Lio!”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Lio muttered, rubbing at his eyes. “Don’t—freak out.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Galo said, the buckle across his chest falling free as he moved to fidget with the second strap across his stomach. “This is me, perfectly calm. See? I’m cool as a cucumber. You’ve never seen me—why won’t this _fucking_ thing _fucking_ open—” 

“Don’t get all unstrapped,” Lio urged with a wince as a particularly powerful pulse lanced through his head. “Take it from someone who knows what a bitch it can be to have to undo and redo a bunch of buckles over and over again…”

“This is more clothes than I think I’ve ever worn in my life, you can bet I’m taking every opportunity I can find to get out of ‘em.” He finally managed the stomach strap and shouldered free of the harness, clambering over to squat between Lio’s legs, looking up at him expectantly. “So what’s up? You tired? Leg cramp? Ass cramp? Need me to massage something?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “The pressure…”

He heard the frown in Galo’s voice. “…You said something about that before. What’s going on?” When Lio didn’t answer quickly enough for his satisfaction, Galo reached up and slapped him lightly on the cheek, then held there, his palm laid along Lio’s jaw. “Talk to me. What can I do?”

Lio’s lids fluttered open, and he leaned into the caress. “…I think it’s the others.”

“The others?”

“…The other Promare. I think…I can feel them, beyond the rift. It’s—massive.” He grimaced. “…I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle getting much closer than this.” It was a curiously torturous feeling: the pounding inside his head as the oppressive sensation of a million-million other minds reached out to his own…coupled with the escalating desire to dive deeper, to get closer, so close he was almost _merged_ with whatever this presence was. To rejoin the multitude. He sought out Galo’s eyes, pleading, “Tell me we’re close enough.”

Galo’s lips thinned into a tight, unhappy line. “…I dunno what ‘close enough’ means. We’re—” He threw a glance back at one of the monitors still glowing on his console. “Well we made it through the hot part, and now we’re in the _hotter_ part, but we’re still like five hundred miles from the _core-_ core. Is that close enough?”

God, Lio didn’t know. _No one_ knew, really. There was nothing for it but to try, he supposed.

Which begged the question: How _exactly_ was he meant to do this? He recalled some mention of ‘synchronizing with his Promare’—whatever the fuck that meant—and a ‘cosmic zipper’ effect, but Prometh and Ardebit seemed to have been convinced his mere presence in sufficient proximity to the core would trigger the disconnect, drawing the Promare on this side of the rift back through to their home dimension.

Did that mean they _weren’t_ close enough, then?

He tried to reach out for the others with his mind—then winced and immediately drew back. _God_ , it was like staring into the sun, a force no human—Burnish or otherwise—could endure for more than a quick glance without risking going blind. His own Promare gave an answering flare, a pulse of energy that sent a shudder through Lio and had Galo hurriedly, worriedly, asking _Hey, you okay? What’s going on? Lio??_

Clearly his Promare could feel its compatriots lurking just beyond the rift—why did it not just _go_? What did ‘synchronize’ mean? It was so eager and excited, it fair boiled the blood in his veins, and yet it still clung to him, to something—

 _Oh_. 

“What? What—you just thought of something, I can see it. C’mon—use your words.”

Lio brought his hand up to cover Galo’s, still caressing his cheek. “Are there cameras on us?”

Galo blinked. “What?”

“Cameras. Are there cameras in here, recording the cockpit? Can you turn them off?”

“I…I mean, I don’t _think_ there’s any on us—didn’t seem really necessary for a one-and-done mission. Why’re you asking ab—” He drew back, expression somewhere between confused and impressed. “…Wait, are you saying…? No, what _are_ you saying?” 

Lio began unclasping his harness, taking his time in slow, methodical movements. “Does that offer to massage something still stand?”

“ _What_?” Galo shrieked giddily, covering his mouth and flushing bright red. He then hissed in a scandalized whisper, “Are you _serious_? I mean, I’m _always_ up for anything, I think you know me pretty well by now, but this seems kind of…I mean the _timing_ is really—isn’t this kinda unprofessional? NOT THAT I’M COMPLAINING _.”_

Lio rolled his eyes fondly, bracing one foot against Galo’s chest to give them some space to work. “Prometh told me to synchronize with my Promare once near the core—so I’m synchronizing with my Promare, now that we’re near the core.” He reached for the zip to his suit, drawing it down and unveiling a swathe of pasty, pale skin, still pockmarked in places with evidence of previous ‘synchronizations’ with Galo. “I’m letting what it wants…and what _I_ want…be one and the same.” He held a hand out to invite Galo back into the cradle of his legs. “Will you help me?”

Galo actually seemed to mull this over, rubbing his chin. “So…this is for the mission, then?” He scratched his head with a squinty look, wrinkling his nose. “I dunno. I mean, this kinda takes away some of the _romance_ of it all, having to ‘perform’ under less-than-ideal circum—”

“Galo.”

He quickly nodded. “Yeah, no, right, removing dick now!”

And he was good on his word, hastily unzipping and tugging out his half-hard member, giving it several preemptive tugs as he waited to see what Lio had in mind. 

Lio tapped his thigh in invitation, and Galo gave a skeptical quirk of his brow. “…Seriously?”

“Think I’m going to break?”

“You know I don’t. But really?” Lio nodded, and Galo gave a _Your funeral_ sort of shrug, waddling over awkwardly to straddle Lio’s lap as he settled down, wincing at what must have been a bony seat. That was quite all right—this wouldn’t take long. “Like this?”

“Mm. Just like this.” He gently eased Galo’s hand away, picking up where he’d left off with long, sure strokes that had Galo’s thighs quivering in record time. “Don’t get distracted—we’re in this together, come on.” He widened his legs, sinking back into his seat further to offer himself up, and with one arm braced against the back of Lio’s chair, Galo carefully reached down and took Lio’s cock in his hand.

Lio’s breath caught in his throat, and he stared, mesmerized, as Galo began to work him. Galo had a dedication to everything he did, a sort of laser focus that meant whatever he was working on—whether it be learning the ins and outs of piloting the Deus X Machina, figuring out how Lio’s coffee maker construct worked, or bringing Lio to a pleasurable and most powerful orgasm—received his thorough, undivided attention. Even when he wasn’t talking Lio up, he still unconsciously behaved in a manner that suggested an almost worshipful attentiveness.

Except this was _just Galo_. It was how he functioned, how he interacted with those around him. When he was talking to you, you were the most important person to him in that moment, and it was _addictive_. Dangerously so. It made you forget that everyone was human and there was no shame in fucking up, because you didn’t want to disappoint this idiot who thought you hung the moon.

“Hey,” Galo said, low and rough and entirely too affectionate as he leaned forward to bump their foreheads together. “Thought we weren’t supposed to get distracted.”

“…It’s a difficult ask sometimes.”

Galo didn’t even try to disguise the satisfied little grin tugging at his lips. “…Yeah, it is sometimes. It _really_ fuckin’ is.” He then pressed forward, slotting their lips together, without so much as a by-your-leave, and Lio let him, welcoming him through with a half-embrace. He slipped his free arm up around Galo’s neck to hold him close and began working the straining dick in his hand with earnest intent. 

How had they wound up back where they’d begun, after everything? Straddling one another in a cramped space, neither engaging in such activities quite entirely because they wanted to but out of, on some level, a _need_. Why hadn’t they put a proper _period_ on this—really given the experience the appreciation it deserved—instead of letting it fizzle, the culmination of the last handful of months now a frantic bit of grab-handing coiled around each other thousands of miles from home? 

His Promare loved this ridiculous man, it _really_ did—Lio could feel it every time their eyes met or hands brushed or Galo shoulder-checked him in his rush to remove a tray of something called ‘bagel bites’ from the toaster oven. That love thrilled through him, filling him from nose to toes with a warmth he shouldn’t be able to feel but _did_ , until he craved Galo almost as much as his Promare did. Until it was impossible to tell where one love ended and another began. Until it felt so much like his own, he didn’t know how he’d ever lived without it before. Or how he’d ever be able to live without it now.

It had frightened him, once upon a time, and still did if he were being honest…but the world was full of frightening things. And beautiful things. And unexpected things. And sometimes those were one and the same. 

Galo had been patient with him at every step. Giving, when he had no cause to be. Obliging, when he wasn’t obligated to be. Loving, when—

When Lio hadn’t. 

Lio drew back, abruptly, as a sudden choked realization swept through him. He searched Galo’s face but found only open, honest desire. Steady and true, as always. Patient. Giving. Obliging.

_“I don’t mind waiting, ‘til you’re ready.”_

_“I’m trying to wait—”_

_“I’m a patient enough guy. I can wait.”_

_“I’ll wait for you.”_

Loving.

Lio swallowed, whispering with a kind of reverent awe, “…You waited for me.”

And Galo gave him a funny look, like he was being very stupid but very adorable about it. “Of course I did. I waited twenty-something years without even realizing it, and I came out okay. What was another few months, I figured?”

Lio took him by the chin, tone almost reprimanding. “You’re a very stupid man, you realize? Who would _wait_ that long? Without knowing what might come of it?”

Galo just gave a simple shrug, unbothered. “Out of four billion people, your Promare picked me. I figured with luck like that, I ought to just roll with it.” He brought his free hand up to cover Lio’s, then turned his face into the palm, pressing dry lips to his lifeline in a soft kiss. “Besides, you’re totally worth it. So it really wasn’t that hard.”

How many people had he used such smooth lines on before? How many had tasted that silver tongue? And did Lio even care?

No, he really didn’t. It only mattered he was here now. That he’d waited for Lio to catch up, to finally be _where he was_ : which was wholly and utterly _here_ , living in the moment and accepting that it was all right, not being in control of everything. There was only one thing he could ever be completely in control of, and that was how he felt, in his heart of hearts. His Promare might control his body, it might control his hormones, but it couldn’t control his feelings. It couldn’t say _fall in love with this idiot_. It couldn’t make his chest clench tight when Galo stood up to him, spoke to him like an equal, and then slipped right back into that easy affection that said _I could do this all day, I’ll never get tired of you_. 

That was all him. 

So he kissed Galo. Kissed him like it was their last kiss, because it might just be, for a hundred different reasons. Maybe Lio wouldn’t feel like this after he’d lost his Promare—like he’d made a million little connections of his own, fusing with Galo in every way possible. Maybe Galo wouldn’t feel the same either. Maybe they wouldn’t even make it back to the surface. Or maybe they would, and duty might keep them apart until there was really nothing left to cling to but memory.

A thousand terrifying _maybe_ s, so he kissed Galo because he really, truly _wanted_ to for once. He would have no regrets, however this played out in the end. 

His Promare had been on to something after all. Lio loved the way it felt to love. To want to be a part of someone, and for them to be a part of you. To not be alone because it was just safer that way, to be more than just a leader or a friend but someone’s _someone_. 

God, he hated his stupid, horny Promare _so much_ for making him feel this way. Because there was no going back to before. There was no _unlearning_ this. It was here, part of him now, and however this all turned out, he was going to be connected, forever, to Galo. 

And it was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Galo’s hand quickened, their kiss deepened, and Lio made a noise of protest in the back of his throat as he felt his climax creep up, quick and quiet until it was upon him quite without his realizing it. He didn’t want this to end, but it had to—and just as he’d had no choice in finding his way to Galo, so too did he have no choice in their separation.

His own ministrations faltered, and Galo reached between them to help him along—and as a pair, they crested, the syrupy, close air of the pod filled with the sounds of slick pumping and heaving panting and keening cries. Lio’s hips jumped as his orgasm hit, nearly unseating Galo, and his release came dribbling out, sliding down and over Galo’s slow, lazy pumps of completion. And it was with Galo’s own grunting announcement of his climax, seizing in Lio’s weak embrace, that Lio began to feel it.

A gentle _tug_ at his center, slow and careful at first, and then as if a hook had been placed, stronger—insistent. _Demanding_. Jerking and tugging with an almost palpable physical force.

Something was pulling him—

No. No, not Lio. Something was pulling at his _Promare_. He felt all the intimate ways in which they were connected, where those fissive little tentacles has wrapped themselves into knots with his own soul, slowly but surely begin to come unwound.

Something huge lurked just at the edges of his consciousness, on the other end of that _hook_ tugging at his Promare—the colony, he realized, waiting just out of reach. All the dozens, hundreds, thousands, millions ( _billions?_ ) of other Promare still beyond the rift, calling to their fellows and beckoning them back through. That final feverish joining had sparked bright, igniting the link between Lio and his Promare and lighting it up like a dying star that sang out _here I am, carry me home_.

He felt in the pit of his stomach a dull ache as his Promare began to slowly, carefully, extricate itself from Lio, falling away bit by bit by bit in a delicate unweaving. He could feel through the pieces of himself still entwined with the creature how it ached to rejoin its hive, to truly be a part of a community once more, interconnected and touching each and every one of its fellows. Was this what had driven Lio, perhaps unconsciously, to found Pyropolis? He’d thought he’d been building a place of protection for others—when really he’d been seeking protection for himself, bounded on all sides by his people, his community. 

The pit grew into a gaping, gnawing _hole_ , and reflexively—physically—he reached out, desperate, silently begging it not to go, not just yet. He hadn’t known what it would feel like, losing this, losing _himself_ , and now that it was here, he didn’t know if he would survive it. He just needed a few moments more, just enough time to come to terms with what he was parting with. It had waited ten years and more for this moment, surely it could wait another ten minutes, surely it could—

“Hey.”

A hand covered his own, giving a gentle squeeze of reprimand.

“This is what we came here to do, right? Just—just let it go. And then we can go home.”

“I’m— _trying_ ,” he choked out, a lump heavy in his throat and sight beginning to blur as tears welled up, entirely unbidden and certainly unappreciated. “I’m trying, I am, I just—I just _can’t_.” He shook his head when Galo tried to softly reassure him with terrible, ignorant nothings. “I’m not ready, not like this. We can—we can get closer. We should go deeper. The armor can handle it. _I_ can handle it. But not yet.”

And Galo, patient and indulgent as ever, said nothing, only sat there on Lio’s lap, waiting quietly for Lio to collect his thoughts. To come to the conclusion he already knew had to be made.

He took a breath, a long, deep inhalation through his mouth and out again, slowly, through his nose. It helped a little bit, but not very much. “…I know it has to be done,” he said, very small. “I know it’s for the best, for everyone. Humans and Promare both. I do understand it.”

“I know you do.”

“You do, but you don’t _get it_.” He brought his hands up, still sticky, to grab on to the thin material of Galo’s suit, stretched tight over his chest. The sensors sewn into the lining continued to pulse in cool blues and pinks with the rhythm of Galo’s heartbeat, strong and steady. “You don’t…you don’t know what it’s like. You’ve got no _idea_. Being alone for so long, and then having this—this _thing_ come into your life that totally and utterly consumes you—”

“Don’t I?”

Lio’s head snapped up from where he’d hung it, searching Galo’s face and finding only a sad, understanding smile, and the lump in Lio’s throat nearly choked him, cracking his voice when he finally managed to find his words again. “…And could you give it up so easily?” 

And Galo’s brow twitched—the only warning Lio got before he was crushed to Galo’s chest in a fierce, tight hug. “…No, no I guess not. Not easily at all.”

Lio let himself be held for a long moment, using the sound of Galo’s heartbeat in his ear now to steady his own. Comforting in its familiarity, Lio wondered if he was too far gone. Using crutches like this, how would he ever be able to stand on his own again?

Well, he was about to find out.

He carefully, and with great reluctance, extricated himself from Galo’s embrace, taking another deep, bracing breath, and with one of Galo’s hands clasped in his own, to ground himself, he closed his eyes. His thoughts drilled down, down, down, like Lio’s armored construct in miniature, diving into the core of himself where his connection to his Promare burned high and bright.

He could feel it flickering as if under a spitting rain as his Promare strained desperately at its leash. He could feel it yearning for its freedom, to return to its fellows, and through it Lio felt a pull stronger than _anything_ he’d ever felt for Galo. It brought a strange pang with it, the realization that Gueira and Meis had been right: in the end, this whole business _had_ been all about a simple desire for connection, nothing more. 

They weren’t soulmates after all, and he didn’t know why this disappointed him so, but it did.

 _‘…Good riddance,’_ he thought then, beginning the arduous mental task of cutting loose the bonds that had tethered him to this creature for so long, half his _life_. The Promare had their home, and he had his. If it wanted to leave so very badly, he would let it. It could go and be with its nameless, faceless hive of multitudes. Lio had his city to protect, his people. Galo, for now. 

And they were all of them waiting for him, in different ways. He would not make them wait any longer.

As he clipped and snipped, an unsettling sensation washed over him, like…like bits of himself were flaking away, and before Galo’s soft _Holy shit_ reached his ears, his eyes were already fluttering open.

The dim emergency lights that had lined the pod had gone dark now, along with the last of Galo’s monitors, but a faint glow still cast a soft, green pall over everything: the tether that connected him to the well of his Promare’s power, spiraling out from his chest in a long, tangling line that kinked and coiled as it wound its way free of its otherwise mortal confines and was withdrawn, at last, following his Promare back through the rift. 

His fingers itched to reach out again, but he stayed his hand this time, forcing himself to watch it all happen. It was dead quiet in the core, but even so he imagined he could hear, in the back of his mind, soft whispers. A child’s laugh. A fond sigh.

The tether of raw, fissive energy whipped out suddenly, taking a swipe at Galo’s hair and searing a clump clean off. The strands fluttered to the ground, fizzling, and Galo gave a jumping yelp as he clung to Lio for dear life. 

“I thought you liked your Promare lovebites,” Lio couldn’t resist teasing, taking refuge in gentle needling as he struggled to find his way back to ‘normal’.

“It can fuck up my arm all it likes, but my hair’s off-limits.” He punctuated this warning with a raised finger and a stern look fixed in the tentacle’s direction.

Lio let his eye track back to the dwindling tether, itself flaking apart, as if the Promare that sat at the other end were already halfway through the rift and the connection fading fast. This thing had been his whole life. The lives of all he knew and cared about. There was no one still alive on this planet who hadn’t in some way been touched by these creatures, for better or worse, and he couldn’t remember what the world had been like without them.

There had been a poet somewhere, ancient and forgotten by now, who’d written on the subject of conflicted feelings. _I love and I hate_ , they had said—and Lio hadn’t understood, too young at the time, how you could both love someone and hate them at the same time. Wouldn’t it drive you mad?

His thighs were beginning to go numb under Galo’s weight, and he supposed it wasn’t too far-fetched an idea after all. And you did, in fact, go a little mad.

He loved and he hated his Promare. He was distraught to see it go, to see his people left defenseless—and yet he couldn’t wait for them to be free, to be allowed to make their way in the world as _people_ , not Burnish. He was a thousand contradictions stuffed into a tight leather racing suit with a stylish jabot. He was Lio-fucking-Fotia.

“Get lost,” he said with a wincing smile, face half-buried in Galo’s chest. “Off with you now.”

And then, as if it had merely been waiting for permission, the tether at last withdrew, spiraling through the wall of the pod tighter and tighter until, with an almost audible _pop_ , it blipped from existence.

An eerie groan echoed through the pitch-black darkness left behind, and Galo eased off his lap, sliding open a side panel and rifling through its contents. There came the sharp _snap_ of a chemical lamp being cracked, and the pod was instantly bathed in a soft, orange glow that had Lio wincing.

Galo scrambled back into his pilot’s seat, zipping himself up with one hand while the fingers of the other flew over the console as he connected the backup power. “Shit…” he said, which never prefaced good news. “Yeah, that awesome armor you constructed? It’s pretty much useless now. There’s cracks all over, and already the pressure’s rising, along with the temperature.” He glanced back at Lio, a wan smile on his face. “Sparky’s really gone?”

Lio finished drawing up his own zip, suddenly—and distressingly—uncomfortably warm. He held a hand out, snapping to call up a spark—but nothing happened. He frowned and tried again, and again, and again until his fingers began to sting. He tamped down the instinctual spear of panic that lanced through him—this was normal. This was the _new_ normal. If he couldn’t summon a flame, it meant no one else could either—or at least that was the idea—and the Promare truly had returned through the rift, hopefully closing up the tear on their way out. Cosmic zipper.

“Yup, good enough for me,” Galo muttered to himself, turning back to the control panel. “That means we’ve got _zero_ time until the pressure of the core either crushes us into dust and boils us alive or vice versa. Neither of those sound fun to me, sooo…” He flipped up a switch cover and slammed his fist one a button—and the pod rocked worrisomely. “Might wanna strap in,” he warned after the fact. “You’re fragile cargo now, no easy healing anymore.”

“What was that?” Lio asked, already scrambling to fit himself back into the harness. 

“Absolute Freezing Charges. The first round’s supposed to form a self-repairing casing to protect us in here. That was what we just felt. Shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds.”

“I assume there’s a second round?”

“There is. And it should go off in about…”

The pod rocked again, far more violently, and Lio listed uncomfortably to the side, following the pull of gravity as he hung, suspended almost completely upside down, for a long moment until the free-rotating chassis righted itself again. His head kept spinning long after the pod stabilized. “A bit of warning would’ve been appreciated.”

“Hey, I told you to strap in. I didn’t say it’d do much good.” He continued to stare at the monitors, muttering to himself under his breath and lost in adjustments as he fine-tuned their climbing ascent.

Lio let his head flop back against his seat, eyes sliding shut as he attempted to process what had just happened.

The high of his orgasm and subsequent adrenaline rush of setting off the Absolute Freezing Charges were beginning to fade, lost in what Lio felt now as a great, yawning emptiness within him. The air in the pod was close and warm and thick, yet his fingers and toes felt cold, and no amount of shivering made it better. 

The Promare had left. The Burnish were no more. Pyropolis was gone—or at least, it would never be the same again. Even if they made it back to the surface now, what would await them? He’d discussed every possible outcome with Gueira and Meis, and he trusted them to act smartly, with the best intentions of their people at heart, but delegating had always been tough for Lio. 

Though he knew it to be in vain, he dug down deep into his center again, searching every corner of his consciousness for _some_ sign. A sign he wasn’t alone. 

But he’d been scraped clean, the little space where for so long there’d been an ever-burning flame now empty, dark, and lifeless. 

He hadn’t thought it would feel this way. He hadn’t known _how_ it would feel, admittedly, but he hadn’t thought he’d feel so… _lost_. 

He’d respected his Promare—but so too had he felt constrained by it, particularly of late. How many times had he wished to be rid of it, if only so he might be free? And now that he was, now that his body was once again _his_ and his alone, he missed the unruly little creature that had filled him with unbidden urges at the most inconvenient of moments.

He would never again drink coffee out of a brewer he’d fashioned himself. He would never again race across the empty stretches of the Waste straddling a vehicle made of fire and will. He would never again feel that undeniable _pull_ to Galo that could only be satisfied by coming together in the most intimate ways imaginable—and some unimaginable ones as well. 

More contradictions. More loving and hating that left him feeling torn in a dozen different directions. He’d been so sure of himself once, but now…

Something nudged his shoulder, and his eyes snapped open—to find Galo, leaning over him, hand held out. “Come sit up front with me.”

“What? Why?” he asked, though he was already unsnapping his harness again.

“Because it’s too cramped for me to sit back here with you.”

“Why are we sitting together? There’s only two seats in this thing.”

“Because it’s gonna take us a hell of a lot longer to get back up than it did coming down, so we may as well pass the time together.” He nodded to the handle bars jutting out on either side of Lio’s seat. “Besides, it’s not like you’re doing any good holding onto those control rods now, and this thing’s on autopilot, so us not being in our proper seats isn’t gonna hurt anything.” He snapped his fingers, impatient. “C’mon. I made a little nook for us.”

“A _nook_?”

“Mmhmm. Cracked a couple more chemical lamps, laid out some very scratchy, uncomfortable blankets I found in the med kit, and grabbed the canister holding our rations. It’ll be like an intimate little post-apocalypse-aversion picnic.”

Lio let himself be led the three whole steps it took to cross the pod, letting Galo sink down onto the carefully arranged blankets first before crawling between his legs and settling back against his chest. He would wean himself of this urge for proximity and sheltering warmth by the time they reached the surface again, he vowed, but that would be hours from now, and in the meantime…he’d earned the right to indulge.

He accepted a carefully wrapped sandwich and peeled away the wrapping, giving a sniff: tuna. “…I suppose we did avert the apocalypse, then. If Prometh is to be believed, at least.”

“You still think he was bullshitting us?” Galo said, barely intelligible with his mouth full of what smelled like peanut butter. “Looks like he was telling the truth about the Promare.”

A glob of jelly dripped onto Lio’s suit from Galo’s sandwich, and he waved a hand over the stain to incinerate it—but nothing happened. Shit; this was going to take some getting used to. “He told the truth about how to send the Promare away. That doesn’t mean it was necessary.”

Galo made a humming noise that reverberated through his chest. “…Well, like you said: you couldn’t have taken the risk of ignoring him only to find out he was _right_ and the earth _was_ gonna explode in a few years.”

“And if I’ve only hastened the extinction of my people, relieving them of their only source of protection?”

“What’re you talking about?” Galo said, swallowing thickly and reaching for another sandwich. “You’re all the protection they need. And they’ve still got you.”

“Hm. And I’m useless.”

Galo knocked their knees together. “Cut it out. I’m not gonna listen to you beat yourself up for the next three thousand miles.”

“Fine, I’ll do it in my mind.”

Galo dropped the sandwich, halfway unwrapped, back into the rations canister and pinched Lio’s side, causing him to flinch. “You can’t set me on fire now, so I’m gonna be a lot less shy about telling you when you’re full of shit. And you’re full of particularly _fragrant_ shit right now.”

Lio twisted around to fix him with a tight glare, contemplating smearing the tuna in Galo’s singed hair before deciding he was far too famished to make such a sacrifice just for his pride. Instead, he slumped roughly back against Galo, enjoying the _oof_ the impact drew from him. 

“I’m the size of a fire hydrant and half as wide around. How exactly am I supposed to protect them?”

“The same way you did before.”

“With the otherworldly living flame that we just sent back to its own dimension?”

“No, with what you _had_. You had your Promare before, so you used it as best you could to protect—when most anyone else would’ve used it to attack. Now that Sparky’s gone, you need to sit back and take stock of what you’ve still got and decide how you’re gonna use it to keep Pyropolis safe. If you think you were only strong because of your Promare, I know a couple hundred people who’d beg to differ. You punch way above your weight, you ooze charisma by the bucketload, and you know how to get what you need without forcing it. You’re intimidating in the best of ways and smart without being a smart- _ass_. Your people could do a lot worse.”

The thing was, they could probably do better, too. Lio reached for one of the bottles of water, throat suddenly parched, and he took a long swig. “…I hesitated. At the end, you saw me. I knew what I had to do…but if you hadn’t stepped in, I don’t know if I could have. Indecisiveness is hardly a trait one looks for in a leader.”

“But you did it. In the end. You had someone with you to keep you honest—you gonna tell me that isn’t part of the reason you keep me around? Because I’ll make sure you won’t let stress or whatever fuck up the good decisions you made while clear-headed?” Shit. Lio had quite nearly forgotten how damn perceptive Galo could be at the most inconvenient of times. “Plus…” Galo shrugged. “It’s like you said: Sometimes it can be hard to give up something that important to you, even if you know it’s for the best. Letting go’s hardly ever easy, and it can hurt a fucking lot. No one’s gonna blame you if you put it off for as long as possible, or if you balk at the last minute. It doesn’t make you _weak_. It just makes you human. And Burnish are human, or so I hear.”

He dismissed the pretty words out of hand—but it was somehow more difficult than usual to ignore them entirely, for he knew well enough by now that even though Galo talked him up to a ridiculous degree, he tended to do so out of a genuine belief in the words he spoke. They were honest, and they were from the heart. So even if Lio didn’t entirely trust them, they still left him with a warm, tingling feeling spreading through his extremities, chasing away the cold that had nipped at his fingers and toes. 

He sank deeper into Galo’s embrace, drawing his legs up to his chest and burrowing close. Galo allowed the indulgence, shoving the rest of his sandwich into his mouth so that he had both hands free again to drape over Lio. Minutes passed—long stretches that could have been an hour, it was difficult to tell in the dim artificial lighting with no windows—and when Lio spoke again, his throat was parched once more, cracking with use. “…Why did you do it?”

“Why did I do what?”

“…Wait for me.”

Galo chuckled, the sound shivering through Lio where he sat curled up against his chest. “What other choice did I have?”

“…To not be in a position where you felt the need to wait for anything in the first place.”

“Ah,” Galo said. “Well, that wasn’t really up to me, was it?”

“No? Had a gremlin in your chest telling you where to go and who to sleep with too, did you?”

“You know, you’re not entirely off the mark,” Galo mused. “Who can really control that sort of thing? Who they…wait for.”

A quiet beat passed, and then Lio asked, very softly, “…Were you ever pretending?”

“Did I ever tell you I was?”

“No.”

“Then why’re you asking? I feel like I’ve been pretty open and honest this whole time. If you think I’m smooth enough to keep anything _that_ close to my chest, I gotta say you have _vastly_ overestimated my skill with deception.” Another quiet beat, and then: “…Were _you_ ever pretending?”

And because Galo deserved the truth, since he was doling it out himself so freely, Lio said, “I…tried. I thought it would be safer that way.”

“Safer?”

“Attachments can be dangerous distractions.”

“You’re attached to your generals. To your people.”

Lio tilted his head back, giving Galo a shrewd upside-down look. “That was hardly the same, and you well know it. You’re an idiot, but you aren’t stupid. Don’t play at being such.”

“You say the sweetest things sometimes,” Galo said, rubbing his nose against the whorl on the crown of Lio’s head. “So? You still think attachments can be distractions?”

“…Yes.”

“Yeah?”

“…Yes. But what good is having fought all this time for my freedom if I don’t do anything with it? I should be allowed to live my life as I please. To do what I like, when I like.” He knocked one of Galo’s knees with his own. “With whom I like.”

It felt like he was trying to convince himself—largely because he was. It still sounded wholly irresponsible to his own ears, but the logic at least rang true. He would have been content to lay down his life for his people—but did he not at least deserve to have _lived_ that life? Been happy? Been loved, if he’d wanted that?

“Hm. Even if Gueira and Meis hate it?” 

“Perhaps especially then.” His generals had gotten better in accepting that Lio’s private life needed to be just that: private. Why interrupt such brilliant progress unnecessarily? Backsliding would do none of them any good.

“Well you won’t hear any complaints out of me from that department.”

Lio smiled against the soft, slick material of Galo’s suit, absently tracing the glowing lines outlining where the sensors were embedded. The moment of levity faded as a new thought dawned. “…I don’t quite know what to do with myself now.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s only, ever since my awakening, I’ve been Burnish in name and act. Fighting for either my own survival or my people’s. It’s all I’ve known for _years_ —over half my life.” He shifted around, looking Galo in the eye and didn’t try to hide the pleading in them for once. They were thousands of miles from anyone and everyone they knew—Galo was the only one who could see him now. And he was the only one Lio _wanted_ to be seen by. “What am I to do now?”

Galo frowned to himself, giving the question serious consideration. “…What about before? Before you became Burnish. Did you have anyone…”

But Lio only shook his head firmly. There was no ‘before’ to go back to, not for him. Perhaps that was why he clung to his new home to such an unhealthy degree; losing his old one had cut so deeply, he’d never quite recovered from the trauma.

He could feel Galo searching his features, waiting for an explanation, but he would find none. It was not a tale Lio relished going into—and he certainly wasn’t about to do so here and now.

Galo was, as ever, patient to a fault, though, and he gave an indifferent shrug. “Well, you’re Lio Fotia. King or something—”

“I’m not a _King_ ,” he reminded for what felt like the fiftieth time.

“Yeah, that’s why I said _or something_.” Galo rolled his eyes. “Like the President, maybe.”

“Not the—”

“You’re _whatever_ of Pyropolis, then. Something important, for sure. And that place is still gonna be there, and your people are still gonna want you leading them even if they don’t have their Promare anymore. Maybe _especially_ if they don’t have their Promare anymore. You helped them, took care of them, inspired and guided them when no one else would. That’s got nothing to do with you being Burnish. It’s cause you’re an amazing person. A little snooty, kind of a dick when you’re horny, but still amazing. You could do _anything_ , and those people would support you every step of the way. Besides—” He sighed, letting his head fall back against the pod’s cool metal casing. “I’m the one who should be worried.”

Lio lifted a brow, then began to absently pick through their rations canister. A two-pack of what he hoped were cookies was all that remained of the meal. “Why you?” he asked, unwrapping what turned out to indeed be cookies—of the chocolate chip variety—and holding one out for Galo to take in his mouth.

“Well,” Galo said around his bite. “I’m kind of out of a job now. No more Burnish necessarily means no more Burning Rescue.”

“Oh.” Lio supposed he had a point. He wasn’t the only one whose life trajectory had been irreparably altered in the span of an orgasm. He popped one of the cookies into his mouth, daintily brushing the crumbs from his hands. “Well, you could always be my consort.”

“What’s that?” Galo said, sounding unaccountably interested in what had been a terrible offhand joke. 

Lio coughed, choking on a bit of cookie. “Something that would make Gueira and Meis very, _very_ angry, I expect.” He reached for his half-empty water bottle and took a swig, swallowing with some effort. They might run him out of Pyropolis actually, if he dared suggest Galo be any sort of permanent fixture in the settlement.

“Ooh. So like your Vice President?” He tapped his chin in thought. “I mean, I don’t have any real experience, but if you’re offering…” He shrugged. “Sure, I can do that. At least until I find my feet.”

Being run out of Pyropolis was looking like the best-case scenario. They might actually roast him alive.

He set the now-empty water bottle aside and relaxed back against Galo’s solid chest, releasing a long, satisfied sigh. They’d done what they’d come here to do, and no one could fault them for what happened next. They would simply meet any coming challenges together, as they’d done so far. They didn’t make a bad team after all, Lio had to admit—though he would avoid doing so until they’d reached the surface, for fear of Galo’s massively inflated head not being able to fit through the cockpit door.

“…You sure we aren’t soulmates?” Galo asked, apropos of nothing, and the sigh Lio released this time was anything but satisfied.

“My Promare’s gone. If such a thing ever existed before—and I _very_ much doubt it—it’s irrelevant now.” He didn’t understand Galo’s fixation on this silly superstition—some might have seen it as romantic, but Lio was decidedly not one of them.

“Well, maybe they aren’t for _keeping_ people together. Maybe they’re just for _bringing_ them together. Showing them ‘Hey, here’s this person you’ll really click with,’ and it’s up to you to make it work. Like…like giving you a map, but it’s your choice to actually follow it.” 

“Have you ever followed a map in your life?” 

Galo shrugged. “Nah. But you did, kind of. And it led you to me.”

“My horny Promare led me to you.”

Galo made a derisive sound. “Maps can come in different forms. Plus this way, you still get that freedom you love so much: you get to decide whether or not you like who your Promare chose for you. Then you can either stick with it…or move on. It’s entirely up to you.”

Oh Galo _did_ know all the words that rang dulcet in Lio’s ears, and if he wasn’t very careful going forward, this could come back to bite him in the end. He reached for Galo’s hand, lacing their fingers together and admiring the contrast. Would his own skin be riddled with scars and calluses in a few months’ time without the Promare’s fantastic healing ability? They would find out, he supposed.

He gave a delicate cough to clear his throat. “…And if I were to choose to ‘stick with it’? What would you get out of this arrangement you were, let’s face it, largely unwillingly roped into? Wouldn’t you want the chance to make the same decision?”

“I think I already told you on multiple occasions I made my decision a long time ago. But if you’re wondering what I might get out of it going forward…well, presumably I’ll get to brew coffee and serve bagel bites to the President of Pyropolis, perhaps with occasional illicit dick touching on the side, just to keep things exciting.” He shifted forward to settle his chin on Lio’s head, wrapping him in an awkward full-body hug. “And lots and lots of Trivia Nights.”


End file.
